The Final Frontier
by Sorcerer of the East
Summary: Life did not end with the closing of the Fourth Great Shinobi War. Humanity grew as they continued to progress onward. It was not fast nor easy, but humans reached for the stars, and took them. With a greater danger approaching from the dark corners of space and strange new species filled with grudges and hatred, can they ever reclaim the dream of True Peace they once had?
1. A History Lesson

**Helloooo to all you people who actually clicked on this story for whatever reason. I thank you for being here. Briefly, (somewhat) I would like to say that I am new to writing but not to reading on this site. I really like science fiction and I... okay I hate Naruto but it was a certain part of my childhood and I've grown to like any decent fics written about it. As such, I'm really sad that I cannot seem to find any decent, long fics that crossover Naruto with... really _any_ scifi story. So I'm writing my own! And if you looked at the automatic ****label for this story you would see I chose Mass Effect. Why? Because Mass Effect is awesome!**

**For some reason, people seem to like having Naruto be the last of his particular brand of humans and have him leave the planet with Shepard or something like that. I'm doing it differently! The whole race of humanity from the ME games does not exist. Instead, the Naruto-verse actually advances past that funky feudal age that they're stuck in and make it into space and to the Citadel... eventually.**

**This chapter was originally just something to help me organize my crazy thought process. Now, I spruced it up a bit and published it as the first chapter... I'm still not quiet sure if that was a good idea, but we'll find out! The chapter below details how the Naruto-verse evolved from the not-Madara's failed takeover to how they become the badasses of the galaxy without even realizing it. You could probably get past the story without reading this chapter as most of the stuff here won't be extremely important, if at all, but it might be fun to read. *shrugs***

**The next chapter/actual start of the story should be up tomorrow... probably... maybe. Depends on how much I drink for the first day of 2013.**

**Posted: 1/1/13  
Word count: 6,650  
Vague summary: Kinda unimportant storyline/backstory.**

**Hope you enjoy**

* * *

**Chapter 1  
****A History Lesson**

* * *

_January First, Year One: The Treaty of Unification is signed, marking the end of the Fourth Great Shinobi War that almost ended the world. All individual countries would hold their previous identities but be included in the Sannin Alliance named after the title held by a man who lived with a dream of world peace but did not survive long enough to see it a reality. All leaders present at the conclave signed the agreement._

_January 2, Year 1 AU (After Unification): The Hero of the war, Naruto Uzumaki, went into self exile. He was widely known as the strongest person in the world and believed that if he stayed allied with is birth home of Konoha it would make the fledgling alliance strained._

_June 1, Year 33 AU: An incident with a distraught Bijuu - Isobu the Sanbi (Three Tails) to be exact - results in the large amounts of destruction and the death of twenty-four humans. To counteract the tension and anger at the demon, Naruto returns from his self exile and creates a large island south of the main continent. He convinces all the Bijuu to move to the minor continent so that nothing similar happens again. Most had been uncomfortable with the sudden growth of humanity and were glad to have such a large space all to their own again. The others did it only because Naruto asked._

Many were once again wary of the Bijuu, but still some remembered how they saved humanity in the Fourth Great Shinobi War. Over the years the people began to trust the Bijuu, eventually celebrating each of them individually. Nine days throughout each year was dedicated to one of the nine Biju. Most were random, but October 10 was indisputably the Day of the Fox.

_February 19, Year 103 AU: Rumors that sailors found another continent west of the mainland could be heard in most households._

_March 2, Year 103 AU: A government funded expedition was sent west over the ocean. Another continent was found, also inhabited by humans. The language of the 'Westerners' was similar enough that it only took a few days to work out communication. The newly discovered culture did have Chakra, though it was not as potent as the 'Easterners' . The Easterners were heavily reliant on their technology, which was far more advanced than that of the Western continent. Agreements and trade routes are created, though it will be difficult with four weeks of ocean between the two continents. Or rather, it would be challenging had the East not have long since created a motor that worked on electricity - a powerful advancement to the steam powered engines the Westerners still used. It enabled them to traverse the seas with much greater ease. Rumors were that the West was also trying to make a vehicle that would allow humans to fly._

_April 14, Year 103: The first updated map of the world is released. It marked the Eastern continent with the name Sannin, the western continent with the name Eden - as its inhabitants called it -, and the southern continent created to isolate the Bijuu with the name Seidou (Sanctuary)._

_January 2, 105 AU: A bombing of Suna ended with a hundred and eighty-two people dead and many more injured. It is found to be blamed on a small group of Westerners that believe that the Sannians (People of Sannin) were trying to poison their society and destroy it. Outraged, the government of Sannin demanded retribution. Not enough people in Eden liked or trusted Sannin enough to side with them and the anger and opposition sparks a war. This marks the beginning of the War of Duality._

The War of Duality was a brutal and bloody slaughter on both sides. On one side, the people of Sannin had far more potent Chakra and generations of powerful ninja abilities. On the other, the people of Eden had far more advanced weaponry. Whenever Sannin would create or rediscover another powerful ability for its soldiers, Eden would mass produce the next most outrageous weapon, and vise versa. By the time it ended, no one was quiet sure who was the most inhumane.

_July 3, 143 AU: In what was promising to be a great battle, the war came to an abrupt end. A great beast, the likes of which had never been seen by anyone living in either armies, sprouted from the ground with a roar. The beast - a raccoon of sorts - that towered over everything there, controlled what seemed like an infinite amount of sand. Each and every soldier on both sides were individually ensnared by the the sands, keeping them from doing anything besides breathing and looking terrified. It was the man who was controlling the monstrous raccoon that stopped the fighting however. He was a man with bright blonde hair and lines tripling each cheek. He stood atop the beast without fear and looked over the armies with calm blue eyes. While those of Eden did not recognize him, the Sannin soldiers knew instantly whom he was. Naruto Uzumaki. The man should have been well over a century old, but the power he held was unmistakeable. Not a single solider died that day._

_July 4, 144 AU: The Treaty of Division was signed. It ended the war and stated that neither Eden nor Sannin would attack each other. Period. With the war the lasted almost forty years suddenly stopping with no winner, there was obviously still tension between the two factions. If Naruto hadn't been watching over both governments - literally being on both sides of the planet at the same time - and swiftly knocking out and locking up anyone who showed any hostility, who knows what would have happened. Over the coming years, the two continents would slowly stop wishing for blood and even become allies._

_August 27, 145 AU: The first child conceived between a soldier of Sannin and one of Eden was born. On its own this is rather impressive that it happened to soon, but there was something else much more remarkable that happened. During the War of Duality, both sides had done all they could to to win, including enhancing the soldiers themselves. The Sannin soldiers were implanted with what they called Seeds of Izanagi. It was based off of the stories of Naruto where he learned to use the Chakra given off by nature to augment his body. The Seeds grew inside of their host's body and fueled them with Natural Chakra, making them faster, stronger, healthier, and longer lasting. On Eden's side, they used a fledging understanding of nanorobotics to replace all the nerves in the soldier's body. It allowed them to process thoughts a thousand times faster and raised their reaction time by 600%. What's amazing about the birth of a child between the two soldiers was that sge was naturally born with both a Seed of Izanagi and enhanced nervous system inside of her._

_165 AU: A fourth continent was found, though it is smaller and had no human life. Not many people are eager to move there due to the extremely cold environment. This land is given the name Yalk._

_298 AU: A mining expedition in northern Yalk finds remains of something. It is never known what as those that found it never return._

_299 AU: A large number of unexplained disappearances occur along the coast of Sannin. Though they are technically allies, there is still bad blood between the two main continents. Rumors start to sprout up that the cause of the disappearances was Eden. Tensions rise._

_January 3, 300 AU: Hundreds upon hundreds of creatures pour into the city of Kumogakure no Sato. They are described as charred human husks implanted with bright blue synthetics. While easy to disable, they were difficult to fully shutdown and came in seemingly unending waves. Unprepared and not having a substantial military at the time, Sannin is slowly overtaken by the Husk army. However, before the Husks can move out of Lightning Country, reinforcements form Eden arrive and hold them off long enough for Sannin to organize and exterminate all of them in a combined effort. Unknown to anyone at the time, this move was what forever cemented an alliance between Sannin and Eden._

_January 4, 300 AU: Once the heat had died down, it is found though various methods that the Husks originated from an abandoned mining zone on the Northern tip of Yalk. A recon team is sent to investigate._

_January 6, 300 AU: Only one member of the recon team made it back. She reported that they found a large ship unlike anything ever seen before, massive in size and deep metallic purple. She said that upon entering her team began acting weirdly. Half the team tried to kill the others and had to be put down. The rest killed themselves. Shortly after finishing her report, the last member of the team tried to kill her commanding officer while screaming about cleansing the galaxy. She was killed on the spot._

_January 11, 300 AU: Another wave of Husks invaded, this time on Eden soil. Furthermore, some of them did not fully resemble humans, more like large insects on two legs. Worse still, many Husks came into battle with powerful, futuristic weaponry, the likes of which had never been seen before. As an idea of combating the computerized corpses, a group of scientists designed a super computer that could hack their synthetics and kill them en masse without risking human life. It worked at first, but the mechanics of the Husks 'evolved' for lack of a better term and became immune to the computer. In response, an even larger group of scientists designed and built a completely new computer that would learn, adapt, and evolve on its own. The Artificialy Designed Adapting Modem, or ADAM, was the first Artificial Intelligence ever made by man, and it worked perfectly._

_February 2, 300 AU: A problem arose with the use of ADAM to kill the Husks. The AI could only work over short distances from where it was based. When the Husks started avoiding the area, it became useless. An idea was brought to the best seal masters Sannin had to offer._

_February 8, 300 AU: The most complicated seal ever designed was finished, ending at over eight hundred feet in diameter. It was mostly done by the man who came up with the idea, whose skills with seals amazed the four dozen other seal masters he called to help. The Evestigatus Seal (Seal of Discovery) was a massive Fuinjutsu version of an AI in that it could learn, adapt, and evolve on its own. It could wirelessly connect to another type of seal he made - called the Izanami Seal - no matter the distance. The Izanami Seal would be grafted into the skin of every soldier willing, allowing instantaneous transmittance of information between each of them. The Evestigatus Seal - or as it became to be known as, Eve - would work in tandem with ADAM to send the AI's signal across all distances to every Izanami Seal. This in itself would not do anything as the signal could not be emitted in a helpful way from anything non mechanical. Luckily, the enhanced nervous system created during the War of Duality - Alpha Nerves, they were called - was now present in roughly 73 percent of the population. It was still unknown why anyone with at least a single parent who possessed Alpha Nerves was naturally born with them, but not many were complaining. Whenever a Husk got within a dozen feet of anyone with Alpha Nerves and an Izanami Seal, the synthetic zombie would drop dead without so much as a finger needing to be raised in defense. Seeing as the combination got the desired results, almost every person with Alpha Nerves volunteered to have the Izanami Seal grafted onto their person. This had the unfortunate effect of almost anyone who did not posses both augmentations to be targeted and killed by the Husks. By the end of the month, everyone was either invulnerable to Husks or already dead. The cybernetic zombies became nothing more than a laugh to look at as they shambled around and died, then they were just an annoyance to clean up._

_March 1, 300 AU: Once the last grafting of the Izanami Seal was finished, the genius of a man who came up who came up with it and Eve dropped the Henge he had held for a month straight and revealed that he was the three-hundred year old war hero, Naruto Uzumaki. After a brief talking with the government leaders, he returned to self exile in Seidou._

_August 13, 300 AU: The last Husks were reported to be dead. It also seemed that no more were being made as there was nothing left to drag victims away to be changed. Still, no one wanted to go and check on the monstrous ship that was reported to be in Yalk._

_September 8, 300 AU: Though they are relatively new, the human-made satellites orbiting Gaia are able to give a blurry image of Yalk from space. It shows a massive dark object against the white snow, moving southwest towards Sannin. Evacuations are ordered from the coast._

_September 11, 300 AU: The construct emerges from the waters onto the island nation of Mizu no Kuni. Images show it to be a gigantic machine in the shape of an insect, though a lobster might be more sensible seeing as it rose from the ocean. A powerful crimson laser tore through the country, setting everything ablaze. Though the civilians had long since been evacuated, the military personnel stationed there to fight stood little chance and were completely annihilated. By dusk, the island country was completely destroyed. The metallic insect seemed to go into a sort of hibernation and was theorized to be recharging. It would have been easy to go on the offensive, but no one knew what they could do against it if they did. So both sides waited._

_December 25, 300 AU: The annual gift giving holiday known as Christmas that started almost exactly three centuries ago was tense. It turned to panic when word of the destructive insect was moving again spread._

_December 26, 300 AU: The metallic creature flew across the ocean. Apparently it spent the last few month regaining the energy to do so. Just as it came over the coast of Fire Country and a great red light began to build up, its gong of a battle cry was overpowered by a cornucopia of animalistic roars. As the evacuations had not finished, both civilian and military had front row seats to the sight of the purple floating machine be struck simultaneously by nine blasts of dark energy. The resulting explosion came in the form of a giant blue and black mushroom cloud - a mixture of the substance that made up the machine's power core and demonic energies. It was not hard to find the source of the blasts that ended the war machine. Not far from the coast, eight giant beasts and one human-shaped figure stood in all their glory._

The year 300 was now commonly known as the Year of Reaping. Naruto and the eight Bijuu eventually returned to Seidou, but only after much celebrating and cheering. Many of the demons were uncomfortable with the praise at first, not used to it, but they all enjoyed as much of the party as they could. Many were interested in the substance that erupted from the 'Reaper', as the machine became known as. As far as it was known, none of the construct itself survived, so all they could study was the blue substance that spread all over the atmosphere. It was dubbed Element Zero, not really for any overly scientific reason, but because all studies gave zero results besides saying it was radioactive.

_June 25, 301 AU: A child was born. Unsurprisingly, it naturally had a Seed of Izanagi and Alpha Nerves. Also, after a conference between the heads of government and Eve, the intelligent Fuinjutsu manipulated the Izanami Seals slightly so that any offspring would naturally have them grafted into their skin as well. What was really surprising was that the child did not look... normal, was the word. She could pass as a human, yes, but there were slight differences. Her musculature system was more compact in some areas and larger in others. Her pupils were larger than normal. And her finger and toe nails were sharper. It was believed to be a rare birth defect._

_June 27, 301 AU: Another child was born. He was perfectly normal, except that his spine was twice as long, resulting in a tail. As he grew older, the tail grew hair only slightly darker than the hair on his head. Now people were intrigued._

_July 7, 301 AU: Another child was born. He was normal in every way to the naked eye. It was proven though that as he grew, the Izanagi Seed that grew inside of him had a large amount of radiation that matched that of Element Zero. Years later, he would be able to use his Chakra in new and strange ways, such as telekinesis._

_305 AU: Large amounts of research finally found results and answers for why one in every three children was born with strange animalistic qualities and why one in every five children had abilities to manipulate their Chakra in ways not dissimilar to that of what the legendary Rinnegan could do. The source was found to be the killing of the Reaper. The insanely large amount of Demonic Chakra from the Bijuu and Naruto did little to those already born at the time, but the recessive trait they developed would matter greatly when someone conceives a child. The children with the telekinetic abilities of sorts were caused by the Reaper itself exploding and the resulting influx of Element Zero. The different looking humans were called hanyo, not out of spite but simply because that's what they were - part human and part demon. The radiated children were called biotics. Many were uncomfortable with the hanyos because of their looks, but no violence ever sprung up. Parents of hanyos cared for their children and thus did not mind others that looked odd as well. Plus, most looked at as _'If the Biju are demons, what's so wrong with being like them?'_. The Biju were seen as great heroes after all._

_October 11, 305 AU: A hanyo child is proven to posses biotic abilities, answering a question many wondered._

_July 16, 969 AU: Though it had been approached often, the idea of leaving the planet never really meant much to anyone until today. Through a combination of technology and Fuinjutsu that had become common place, the first spaceship made to carry life was finished and set to launch with its crew of one AI and five humans - two of which were hanyos and one a biotic. It's destination: the moon. Shortly before it launched, the crew was met face-to-face with a legend in the form of a young blonde man. It had been a long time since Naruto had last been seen out of Seidou and it was an unspoken rule that no one was to got there, but he had not aged since 300 AU. He just smiled and joked to watch out for the soulless corpse of the Jubi that was buried on Luna. Not even the crew themselves knew if they should be honored at meeting him, or terrified at the reminder that no one else had managed remembered._

_November 26, 1011 AU: By now, shuttles moving off from the surface of Luna and Gaia was common place, but today another special ship was being launched. This one was set to go to the fourth planet from the sun, Inari. Only one member of the famous moon landing crew was part of this one, the other three surviving members stood off to the side next to an blonde legend to salute the explorers._

_April 10, 1148 AU: A recent census showed that Gaia held a population of over Twenty-one-and-a-half billion humans. Luna had long since been terraformed - a process that took nearly a year for the relatively small planetoid - and now housed a population of eleven billion humans. Inari and its two moons Kurama and Phobos had been terraformed as well, the latter two having been physically tripled in size to keep them stable and to have workable gravity. They each held a population of roughly six billion, two billion, and one-and-a-half billon respectively. But today, a deep sea research team found something on the bottom of the Deseado Ocean in the southern hemisphere of Inari. The remains of technology by what are being called the Protheans send all of humanity into a frenzy. Never before had it been proven that alien life exists (though more than a few speculated that the Reaper was not of their home planet)._

Specialties used what they could from the ruins to upgrade their own technology, but not as much as what people wanted came out of it. The formula for Medigel was useful for hospitals and caught on quickly, but other than that nothing really changed. Prothean weapons were so different from their human equivalents that nothing could be taken from them. Maybe they would have been helpful had humanity still used the guns of Eden from the War of Duality, but it was far too late now. Omni-tools were almost hilariously pointless with Skynet. Skynet was the unbreakable connection between all humans that was made from ADAM, Eve, the Alpha Nerves, and the Izanami Seals. When compared to the Prothean's Omni-Tool, they were actually very similar except that the Omni-Tool was a wristband like device with a holographic interface, Skynet was literally inside your head. It also worked nearly a hundred times faster, had no known distance it could not work over, and could not get lost or stolen. It was not even a contest to which one was better.

The Prothean ships interested some people with how they ran on Element Zero and the Inari government scheduled for one to be built. But with Element Zero being as rare as it was and no one wanting to ride on a ship powered by it - the explosion from the Reaper power core was still well known - the project was dropped before it could even really begin_._

_1213 AU: Humans land on the planet Venus, the second planet from the sun. Due to its toxic atmosphere it takes fifty years to fully terraform, unlike Inari's twenty-one._

_1298 AU: Humans land on the planet closest to the sun, Mercury. It is deemed too difficult to terraform due to the close proximity to the sun and is only used as a source for mining minerals and questionable experiments._

_1401 AU: A freelance company springs up with an unusually large amount of funding from places unknown, and with its only objective being the advancement of humanity. The three branches - or 'heads' as they are more commonly known as - of the company are agriculture, exploration, and military. The company's name is Cerberus._

As part of the agriculture head, Cerberus used an almost unbelievable amount of money to create a more workable terraforming sequence. When it is finished, Mercury is made perfectly habitable and twice its original size in just under five months. The new sequence is so effective that it is estimated that Inari could have completely terraformed in two months if this process had been known at the time.

The exploration head spent seemingly endless amounts of cash to make spaceships faster, longer lasting, bigger, and easier to live in. It was this branch that figured out the secret to artificial gravity.

The military head upgraded all commonly used weapons from the most mundane of kunai knives to the latest combat seals. This was much slower going seeing as how no one was expecting a war anytime soon.

_1420 AU: Human ships made it past the asteroid belt and into the area of the Gas Giants. The fifth planet from the sun, Sussano - named after the giant storm on the planet that was visible even from space - had dozens of moons orbiting it. The four largest were quickly enlarged and terraformed. They were named Kazekage, Mizukage, Raikage, and Tsuchikage after the leaders of old Sannin. Every other moon remaining that was too small to inhabit were dragged together into a fifth planetoid that was much bigger than all other moons, being nearly three-quarters the size of Gaia. It was also terraformed and named Hokage. They were designed with special atmospheres to absorb large amounts of light so that they could be habitable even though they were so far away from the sun._

_1421: Plans to turn the gas planet of Sussano into a habitable planet began to circulate the Skynet rumor mill._

_1432 AU: Human ships made it to the sixth planet, another Gas Giant called Saturn. Governments and Cerberus worked on a new and bizarre idea instead of making a special atmosphere like the five moons of Sussanoo - which was a _very_ expensive project. The idea was to build a giant metal ring that surrounded the planet and poured light down on it. While it is possible to create metal from Chakra, the amount of supplies Cerberus used was so large that everyone was stumped as to where they got them from. Only strip mining a planet or large moon could hope to get that much metal!_

_1455 AU: The largest building project humanity had ever taken part in was finished. The 'Halo' that surrounded Saturn was so large that it was successfully cultivated and given its own atmosphere. The outside of the ring was both inhabitable and able to grow plants, but the inside was covered entirely in Fuinjutsu to pour light down as it orbited Saturn, effectively making 'night and day'. Already immigrants were moving to the Halo - named Micheal after the angel of an old Eden religion._

_1459 AU: Sussano is successfully terraformed to have a habitable atmosphere and gravity. The gigantic storm it was named for vanished as well, but due to its distance from the sun it is constantly very dark. The answer was to build another Halo and put it around the planet.._

_1461 AU: Humans reached the seventh planet from the sun, Tsukuyomi._

_1462 AU: Saturn is successfully terraformed. With the light given off from Halo Micheal, and a few adjustments to lower the gravity to tolerable levels, it was perfectly habitable. _

_1469 AU: The Halo Raphael is completed around Sussano. The artificial light given off from the inside of the ring allows people to comfortably live on the surface of Sussano. Unlike the construction of Micheal that only had Cerberus to build it, Raphael had the combined effort of Cerberus and the governments of Sussano's five moons. The combined effort made the process that previously took twenty-three years to complete only ten._

_1470 AU: The eighth planet in the Sol System, Amaterasu, was reached._

_1472 AU: Tsukuyomi was terraform and the Halo Gabriel that surrounded it was finished. This Halo also took only eleven years, with only Cerberus working on it, it proved that their method of building Halos had improved._

_1473 AU: The leaders of Cerberus declared a new idea that most people took as a bad laugh than being serious. They said that they would take the asteroid belt that separated the first four planets from the last five and turn it into a massive Halo that encircled the sun and inner planets just as the belt did. Many laughed at the idea, especially because there was no real reason to build it at all. It would not be needed to give light to anything as it did not surround a planet, and it would be impossible to gather enough supplies even if they were given a century. Or so they said._

_1474 AU: Cerberus began construction on the greatest Halo, alone, with half of their personnel working on the Halo to surround that they were actually serious, many become intrigued with the ideal of this 'Great Halo'. It slowly became recognized that humanity was starting to overpopulate. Whether this insanely large Halo would help or not, no one knew for sure. _

_1476 AU: The governments of Gaia, Luna, Inari, Kurama, and Phobos joined in helping Cerberus._

_1477 AU: The governments of Venus, Mercury, Susanno, Hokage, Kazekage, Mizukage, Raikage, and Tsuchikage joined in the effort to build the massive Halo._

_1478 AU: The large section of Cerberus that was working on Amaterasu's Halo, Uriel, finished and moved to help the main section in the big construction._

_1479 AU: All remaining planetary governments joined in the effort._

_1480 AU: The ninth and final planet, Pluto, was landed on by humans. It was small and many did not even consider it a planet, but that wouldn't stay like that for long._

_1481 AU: Pluto was risen to nearly four times its original size and terraformed. A Halo was scheduled to be built around it but the system's governments did not want the working forces to split in half like they did for Uriel. Instead, every able ship from the construction of the Great Halo was sent to Pluto to build that Halo instead. The Halo surrounding Pluto, Camael, was finished in a stunning seven months. Morals boosted by the accomplishments, the work force returned to constructing the Great Halo._

_1483 AU: The Pluto government, young as it was, joined in on the efforts of building the Great Halo._

_1485 AU: Governments had been slowly and carefully formed for the people living on the Halos Micheal, Raphael, and Gabriel. At this time, they believed that they were stable enough with the new and strange lifestyle to send help to joined the construction._

_1486 AU: Uriel and Camael governments joined the effort._

_1491 AU: The special atmospheres of Hokage, Kazekage, Mizukage, Raikage, and Tsuchikage that were made to absorb light started to fail. The air was becoming thin and if it was not fixed with two years, the atmospheres would be nonexistent. Quickly, the construction force split into five groups to build a Halo for each moon. The mere idea of saving whole cities by the dozen spurred on the teams and they finished all five Halos in thirteen months. The faulty, special atmospheres were replaced with normal ones._

_1499 AU: The Great Halo - given the name of the angel in an old Eden religion who united humankind - Sandalphon is complete and habitable, being finished at 24,000 kilometers in width and just over 460 million kilometers in diameter._

The 1400's are known as the Century of Gold. The year 1500 itself was seen as one giant blur as a giant party seemed to take up the entire 365 days. This is truly one of the highest points humanity had ever been at. It had made every surface in its entire solar system inhabitable. The space fairing ships had changed greatly from the cramped, slow ships of the lunar landing. It was not uncommon for some people to live in giant space ships that doubled as cities, commonly called Star Cities. Crime was at an all time low, nearly nonexistent with the great influx of jobs that Cerberus' many projects gave. While not enemies, the new governments all over the Sol System were bound to have problems, but now an agreement was taken all of the governments as they worked together on Sandalphon. By the end of the century, the governments formed a group that would make decisions for the solar system as a whole. It was to be called the United Planets, but that was considered to be discriminatory against those who lived on Halos. So instead they named it the Systems Alliance.

A _humongous_ baby boom in the Century of Gold took the population from the fifty billion it was at before to over two-and-a-half trillion. And that's where a problem began to be shown. The population would not drop down any time soon unless war broke out, and no one wanted that. Combined with the average human lifespan being three-hundred and fifty years (hanyo living slightly longer and biotics slightly less), and they would run out of space sooner or later. Granted it would take a long time now with the Halos and terraformed planets, but it would happen eventually.

_1509 AU: To make it easier, the massive construct of Sandalphon was divided into six sections that could be considered countries. They were named Tendo, Shurado, Ningendo, Chikushodo, Gakido, and Jigokudo, and each had its own government body. _

_1511 AU: The six governments of Sandalphon considered themselves stable enough to ask for being part of the Systems Alliance, they were accepted without argument._

_1537 AU: A cruiser discovered a large construct in deep space. It was described as a giant tuning fork-shaped thing, made from a dark purple metal that had not been seen since the Reaping War. It was quickly proven to be made similarly as the Reapers and the Systems Alliance ordered every human to stay as far away from it as possible. No one was stupid enough to risk it._

_1672 AU: The Systems Alliance decided to disband all standing militaries. This was more of a formality than anything else as the only planet that still had a military at this point was Gaia and it had not been used in centuries, all others having already been disbanded. Many expected that without the military that crime would rise. Instead, it lowered greatly as many of the ex-soldiers joined the police._

_1798: Unemployment began to rise with the population, which now numbered over three trillion strong. People began to get nervous at what could happen._

_1800: The Systems Alliance called in Cerberus - who still seems to have infinite supplies and money - and proposed to them the idea of leaving the Sol System with newly created and untested technology that should allow ships to enter Hyperspace and, theoretically, move at speed faster than light. Cerberus agrees._

_1805: The unemployment almost completely disappeared at the construction of a great fleet of ships. The goal was to move three billion volunteer individuals out of the Sol System and into the next. They had no shortage of volunteers at least and the ships could easily recycle breathable air and grow food. Many believed that the ships would make the journey, and after five years of testing the FTL (Faster Than Light) travel method of entering Hyperspace it looked promising. The problem was that no one knew what would happen to Skynet. It worked fine in connecting people from all the way from Mercury to Pluto, but no one knew if it would work from one system to the next. When asked, Eve said that she had no way of knowing, but that she would do all that she could to keep everyone connected. She even called in her 'father', Naruto Uzumaki, to oversee her constantly growing seal array and change it if necessary. The fact that such a legend was partaking in the this giant immigration stirred many to help and volunteer as well as well._

_October 24, 1806 AU: The Immigration Fleet was finished, filled, and ready to launch. It consisted of three hundred and fifty-nine ships with the largest by far being the _SSV (System Alliance Space Vehicle) Noah's Ark_, reaching a great 500 kilometers in length. With cheers and goodbyes, the fleet engaged the Hyperspace and immediately disappeared from Skynet - something that all previous times meant you were dead._

_October 31, 1806 AU: The week had passed in an almost unnatural depression for the Sol System. Everyone was connected to Skynet, so everyone felt the sudden absence of three billion people ranging from babies to elders. It was to be expected, as Hyperspace is basically another dimension, but no one knew if they would ever return. It was with a start on one Saturday on the last day of the month that ADAM sent a blaring message through the Skynet, purposely giving everyone a mild wakeup shock in the process. _"The Immigration Fleet has returned to Skynet! The Immigration Fleet has returned to Skynet!"_ People cheered like never before, screaming in celebration to the heavens._

In later years, October 31 will become a holiday of fear and reward where people of all ages - though mostly children - dress up in scary costumes and in return get candy. It was named after the man who lead the entire fleet, Hachiro Halloween.

_1850: The second inhabited solar system, the Proxima System, had all four planets and eleven moons terraformed and the _Noah's Ark_ was taken apart to build a Great Halo that surrounded the system's sun. The Great Halo was named Noah for obvious reasons._

_1991: Cerberus made a major advancement was made in Hyperspace technology, allowing ships to travel greater distances at a fraction of the time. For instance, the famous week of travel from Sol to Proxima was shortened to two and a half hours._

_2000 AU: The largest fleet ever made, consisting of two thousand and fifteen ships was set for launch. Many of the ships were Star Cities that were outfitted with Hyperspace drives. The _Spreading Fleet_ was loaded up with nearly half the population of the Sol System, numbering a staggering two-and-a-half trillion people. The fleet launched off in every direction to spread to any and all nearby systems. All passengers had reentered Skynet within the day._

_2001 AU: The Systems Alliance - which had broadened to include the governments in the Proxima System and will probably do the same for other systems once they establish governments - realized that humanity was growing very quickly. They had had close calls before but always managed to avoid the problems that came with overpopulation by expanding outwards. They knew that eventually, they would not be able to do so anymore. To solve this they passed a law stating that every couple could only have a maximum of three children. Many were angry with this and raged in the forms of strikes and such but the Alliance was unwavering. Luckily, no riots broke out and the anger lowered to a simmer by the end of the the next decade. By the end of the century, it was seen as an unspoken way of life that everyone followed, like how no one steps on Seidou soil, ever._

Years.

Decades.

Centuries.

Millennia.

Humans advanced.

Seals advanced.

Artificial Intelligences advanced.

Halos advanced.

Ships advanced.

Life advanced.

Many more Prothean ruins were found, though little was ever acomplished by them except some pretty pictures of the stars and useless blueprints. Three more large purple constructs were found floating in odd corners space, and each were avoided like the plague. Cerberus, once a company that held greater power than any one government, became smaller and smaller but still held the same respect. It was seen as a great honor to be one of the few thousands that work for Cerberus, but they have only had relatively small advancements since the building of the First Great Halo and the SSV Noah's Ark.

_June 18, 5149 AU: A small group of scientists were given permission by the Systems Alliance - after two years of debate mind you - to study one of the five known purple constructs. The allowance of going near the object surprised many, but many more were curious about what could be found out about the... _things_. The group of forty-five scientists and twelve civilians - for piloting and manual labor mostly - approached the purple construct orbiting the sun of the Utopia System._

* * *

**And that's it! Was it good? Great? Bad? Terrible? Did it make you throw up? Review and let me know! (PS: I already know I'm a terrible writer, so if you leave a review saying this is terrible, it will only boost my ego and prove that I'm right.)**

**Explaining time!**

**FIRST OF ALL: Don't tell me all this bull- *cough* I mean genius work of art that I threw together is impossible. I know that! But it's fiction! And badly written fiction at that! Also, the people of the Naruto-verse should have damn near infinite amount of supplies if there's even one person ever again who can to wood, metal, or even crystal release (and I'm going with the assumption that it's a recessive trait and will sprout up again at some point). They have _unlimited work force_ (clones) and they can defy the laws of physics from before they hit puberty! So yes, I think that they can pull off stuff like this.**

**Izanagi Seed: It's exactly as it sounds - weird and corny. Basically, now everyone is born with a little seed somewhere inside of them and as they grow, the seed grows into a plant that sprouts around their entire body and give of Natural Chakra. And yes, I did just make the entire human race a bunch of Toad Sennin. I might think of some decent reason for why these exist later, but for now - they're there because I want them to be.**

**Alpha Nerves: Pretty sure I explained this as decently as I could above. To think about how effective they are, look at it like this: They were made to combat the Izanagi Seed powered soldiers. They work really well.**

**Izanami Seal: Again, everyone is born with one now - and I _do_ have a reason for that. I imagine them as full body tattoos. They work as a radio of sorts and connects everyone who has them to Eve and - by extension - everyone else.**

**ADAM & Eve: Nope. Not inspired by anything else. Nu uh. Completely original. ADAM is a bad anagram for the name of the first AI humans made in this ****story. It's first function was to hack into the synthetics of Husks and kill them. To spread its signal, Naruto desguised himself and made the Evestigatus Seal (Eve). It was fully sentient and the only one of its kind. Using Eve's connection to every human with an Izanami Seal on them, she could transfer ADAM's signal to their Alpha Nerves and broadcast it a short distance from the people. The result? Husks dropping like flies. (For those who don't realize it, this will definitely change the way the war goes when the Reapers come back)**

**Skynet: What? No! Of course that's a completely original name that I made up... Just be glad I didn't go through with my original plan of calling it the Matrix, even I'm not that corny... yet. Through a combination of, well, everything in the list above, humans created Skynet. Imagine having Google, Facebook, a cell phone, and everything else like them inside your head. Now imagine you always had perfect reception and now lag _ever_. Now imagine a bunch of AI's also connected to it and constantly doing stuff as well. Now imagine it being around for nearly five _thousand_ years. That's pretty much Skynet. *shivers* I think I created hell.**

**Halos: Bet you can't figure out what these were inspired by? Oh, you say the Halo game series? WRONG! They were actually inspired by an old scifi novel called Ringworld that I read a while ago. I then took the idea and shoved it through the meat grinder that is my brain and vola!**

**Sandalphon, the First Great Halo: Why yes of dear readers, I _did_ in fact just say that it was 460 _MILLION_ kilometers in diameter. It's roughtly the diameter of the asteroid belt that turned into it so I thought it was appropriate. Suck on that Forerunners!**

**Due to lack of originality, I placed Naruto's planet in our solar system and just changed the names up a bit to match the mix with Japanese being a main culture of the world. Also, the continents of my version of Earth are completely different from what they really are, in case you did not figure that out. Still, I tried to draw as many parallels as possible to keep it simple to remember (****i.e.: holidays, certain dates, some name of ships and Halos).**

**Gaia = Earth (Hoped you could figure that one out)  
Inari = Mars  
Kurama = Deimos  
Sussano = Jupiter  
Kazekage/Mizukage/Raikage/Tuchikage = Io/Europa/Callisto/Ganymede  
Tsukuyomi = Uranus  
Amaterasu = Neptune (Most should realize that these have nothing in common. Why did I name it that? Because I felt like it. Meh!)  
Pluto = Pluto (Because I say that it's a planet! Just like what I learned for the majority of my life!)**

**And... well, that's it I think. I probably missed a bunch of stuff, but if I did there's a good chance it will be answered if this story continues.**

**Feel free to point out any and all spelling/grammar mistakes you see. I might not get around to fixing them but it might help prevent future mistakes.**

**Until next time,  
****- - _Sorcerer of the East_**


	2. The Story Begins

**Howdy persons! Well it's ****tomorrow, er, well whatever - but I remembered to post the next chapter. To the 15 people who reviewed on the previous kinda-chapter, you have my thanks, there were actually more of you than I thought and that gave me a warm tingly feeling... at least I hope you gave that to me, otherwise I might have to go see a doctor...**

**Anyway! This is the first chapter where I don't do that weird dating thing I did last time. For those not in the know, it is actually Mass Effect cannon that Shepard's mother is Hannah, so I did not make that part up.**

**Furthermore, I procrastinated so much in everything I was supposed to do over the last few hours and instead of doing anything productive I wrote the next chapter!... and a half. I still have to read over it and fix any stupid mistakes that litter my work that I manage to find, so I'll post chapter 3 on, uh, let's try friday. That should be enough so look for it then! Or not, you could forget all about this, it's up to you.**

"Text like this is talking normally."

_"Text like this is being said through a radio or Skynet or something else like that."_

::Text like this is being being read, like on paper or Skynet or something.::

_**Text like this is... other, I don't actually have a good definition of this without spoiling anything too badly.**_

**Posted: 1/2/2013  
Word count: 10,853 (Pretty big, huh? Expect similar lengths for later chapters... maybe)  
Brief Summary: First Contact War, written in a way that only makes sense in my mind**

**Hope you Enjoy.**

* * *

**Chapter 2**

**The Story Begins**

* * *

_It did not take humanity long to figure out what the constructs, dubbed Mass Relays, did. Though they were faster and traveled farther than current Hyperspace technology allowed, the lack of being able to broadly target where to go and the obvious relation between it and the Reaper dissuaded people from activating anymore right away. Still, it was used to its only advantage and when needed, humans spread even father without argument - well, without very much of it that is. One thing everybody loved about Mass Relays though, was that you could stay connected to Skynet while traversing between them. Even if it was only for less than a day, being separated from the mass of information and communication that you've been connected to for almost your entire life is never fun. The main reason anyone was studying the Mass Relays was to see if they could incorporate the access to Skynet into Hyperspace technology._

_It was eight years after activating the construct when a cruiser filled with specialists and civilians went - on the System Alliance's blessing of course - to turn on a second dormant Relay._

_5157 AU: War returned._

**'~,_,~'**

**Codex Update**

Beta Nerves: A special serum was released by the Systems Alliance in 4040. When injected into a person, it coated the Alpha Nerves and changed some of their more basic functions, making them more simple to use. The Beta Nerves were given free of charge to any who asked - and many did - and are agreed by most to be an improvement over the Alpha Nerves. As always, any offspring were naturally born with the upgraded nanotechnology

Taihou Seal: Invented back in the War of Duality by the Sannin Army to combat the guns of Eden, they have since became the main personnel weapon of choice with guns ceasing in manufacturing shortly after the war. The Taihou Seal started as a modified Storage Seal that released its contents one at a time. Another seal was then added on top of it to boost the released object to supersonic speeds of over six hundred meters per second Since they were faster, stronger, lighter, and held many times the amount of ammo that the guns Eden used, it was no competition to which one became more popular once Sannin and Eden were allies.

Shanxi: A naturally habitable planet for humans in the Hong System. Discovered in 5156 and has since begun to slowly become inhabited. Its current population is roughly three thousand.

**'~,_,~'**

Commissioner Hannah Shepard gave the thought to mark her agreement with the form she was currently looking at _again_. A sigh escaping her weary lips. With only one completed city on Shanxi and no leader elected yet to rule, the position fell - temporarily - on the shoulders of the Police Commissioner. Her. As such, she technically owned all non-private property on the planet, which was awesome. She also had to agree to _every_ agreement to turn said land into private property. Not awesome, especially with Shanxi being a planet that was to take the blunt of this system's immigrants.

Shanxi was already habitable by the time humans got here, a rare event. The three other planets and five moons in the system had not been terraformed yet and the two Halos that were scheduled to be built have not yet even begun construction.

Hannah stopped working abruptly and looked up. A Skynet-wide broadcast had been issued. Hannah frowned. "What in the name of Kami?" A voice to her left said.

While anyone could issue a Skynet-wide broadcast - that is, news that is instantly transmitted to every human using Skynet - not many ever do so. Eve was very sensitive to anything that could be regarded as spam, and everyone knows she has a short temper. If someone were to ever use Skynet for spying, crime, or pornography - _especially_ pornography - she would change the Izanami Seal and Beta Nerves that person possess and burn them off at nearly five hundred degrees Kelvin. Not only would this forever disconnect the individual from Skynet, it would also nearly cripple the person as they would never be able to feel anything ever again, it might even kill them. Plus, it would obviously be painful. _Very_ Painful.

To date, only four people have ever been stupid enough to do something like that. Two were forgiven because they were children. One was given off with a light warning in the form of a pain not dissimilar to if they had a particularly nasty full body rash. The fourth one Eve went all the way with and turned him catatonic. A month later he starved himself to death. On a side note, companies actually needed to go through a very long process in order to broadcast their commercials over Skynet.

But back to the current predicament. Hannah watched the news flash before her eyes in a familiar way she had known for most of her life. To describe what Skynet was like to someone who has never used it, would be difficult. The best way would be saying it was like having a HUD (Heads Up Display) inside your eyes. Hannah kept a bar along the top of her vision reserved for news so that she could constantly watch for crime and what not. But upon seeing the notice for a Skynet-wide broadcast, she gave a thought and enlarged the section to cover her whole vision.

The semi-transparent window that now dominated her perception showed a standard starship control panel. The image was moving, showing it was a video, and panting filled her ears as the audio to match played in her brain.

_"Attention everybody!"_ The voice of a man said as the vid showed clawed hands running over the controls. _"I don't have much time, but I'm part of the group of scientists that went to activate the Mass Relay on the Hong System!"_ Hannah tensed as she heard that. Now she recognized the voice!

"Isn't that Juro?" The voice to her left spoke up again, unknowingly mimicking Hannah's thoughts. The scientists had stopped on Shanxi early this morning and she had taken a liking to one of them, a charming hanyo named Juro. She even agreed to go out to diner with him when he got back.

_"We never managed to activate it!"_ The voice continued to shout. A sudden explosion was heard and the video shuddered and crashed into the control panel with a loud _thump_. Hannah winced. The vid could only be recording from his eyes so that means he just went headfirst into the metal. Juro managed to ignore the pain and continue speaking, albeit slower. _"We... we were... a-attacked!"_

Hannah stiffened. An attack? Who would attack a group of scientists and civilians?

_"T-The ships! There not human!"_

"Oh fuck." Hannah's voice was match by the one that came from her left, though hers had noticeably more colorful language.

_"They have guns attached to the ships too!"_ Yep, definitely were not humans. Never before had a human starship been made with a weapon on it. There was no point. By the time humanity reached the stars the Reaping War had long since past and they've never had any major violence since. It was rumored though, that the original starship designs had something to ward off asteroids if they got too close but that idea was scrapped because it was so ineffective. _"Our engines... Are mostly gone already. This ship was not equipped with escape pods either." _The hands stopped moving over the controls that no longer worked and the vid moved up to look out the ship's window. Hannah instantly recognized what she saw as a space view of Shanxi. _"We're doomed, there's no way around that."_ Juro continued, much more reserved now. _"They'll probably go to Shanxi first."_ He made a fist and hit the controls before giving up on them and turning. The rest of the ship's bridge was clattered with personnel moving about. Two people lay on the metal floor, not moving. One had a visible dent in her skull. In the middle of the room, a small pedestal emitted a hologram of a person no taller than five inches. It was an AI. Juro moved the AI as he continued to speak._ "I'm sending Sara here to ADAM." _The AI apparently heard that as she looked up sharply.

_"What? No, I'm staying here!"_ The now identified Sara yelled back.

The vid moved as Juro shook his head, but did not directly respond to the sentient computer. _"Sara managed to get scans on the ships and hacked a little into their networks. What she knows is needed if we want to save everyone that we can." _The ship shook again from another explosion. _"GO SARA!"_

Sara gave Juro - and by extension every other human watching - a pained look. The expression on her illuminating face made it clear that if she was physically capable of crying she no doubt would have. The AI gave a curt nod before disappearing in a flash.

A tense silence passed as Juro watched the now empty pedestal for no reason. A loud sigh escaped his lips and the vid began to blur, like it was being seen through water. He was crying. _"I guess this is it. Bye mom, dad, sis, Sara."_

_"Another volley of missiles has been shot!"_ One of the few surviving techs yelled from across the bridge.

Juro gave a bitter laugh. _"And I had a hot date tonight."_

There was a flash of red and a loud crash before the video and audio disappeared. Never again would any of them connect to Skynet.

There was a great pause where the only thing Hannah was aware of was the tears trailing down her face. She may not have known Juro or the crew for long, but they were good people and did not deserve such a fate. Then calls from all over Skynet came in. As Police Commissioner, it was unsurprising that she got so many calls from the people of Shanxi who want help, or others that lived far away and wanted to talk to the person in charge. Suffering through the mild headache the sudden influx of calls gave her, Hannah zeroed in on an indicator that showed one particular person was calling her. Dismissing all other calls with a thought, she accepted the one labeled 'Benjamin Udina, Kage of Gaia'.

The connection patched through. A small icon with the leader of Gaia's profile was in the top corner of her vision. It was a audio-only call.

_"Hannah Shepard."_ The voice she had only heard over news feed before sounded from below her eardrums.

"Kage-sama." She responded with the appropriate title. Every planet, moon, and Halo that was inhabited and possessed a government had a single ruler - a Kage. Udina was the current ruler of humanity's home world and the de facto leader of the System's Alliance. That he had called Hannah personally meant things were serious, not that she did not already know that.

_"I don't think I have to tell you what's going on."_ The voice replied, stoic and hard as any good politician can sound.

"No Sir." Even as they spoke, Hannah moved around her small office to gather everything she could carry and might be helpful.

_"Good. I'm putting you in charge of protecting Shanxi."_ Hannah froze momentarily, but quickly returned to clearing out her office. _"As we speak, a dozen ships are being outfitted with weapons and a hundred more are on their way to evacuate the planet, but that's not good enough against this unknown enemy."_

"Are they-"

_"They're not the Reapers."_ A breath that Hannah did not know she was holding exhaled. _"Though they may be the Protheans, we simply don't know." _Udina let out a sigh, catching Hannah was caught off guard for a second by the breaking of the serious tone. _"I'm not going to lie to you Commissioner Shepard, we're in a bad situation. Never before have we had to fight in the vacuum of space, and we have no standing military _anywhere_. Even if we somehow build a squadron of battle ready ships soon enough and somehow break the laws of physics to get to Shanxi before they do any serious damage, we are inexperienced in fighting in such a situation. The only thing I can give you are the scans that we got of the ships."_

Hannah stood in the middle of her office, gnawing on her bottom lip.

_"Com-... Hannah?"_

"Yes?"

_"Save everyone you can."_

"Of course Sir. I'll do my best."

_"Let's hope that is enough. Udina out."_

Hannah Shepard took a minute to gather her thoughts before her head snapped up, green eyes blazing and face set in a hard visage.

"Who was that, Hannah?" A voice from her desk asked. The Commissioner turned sharply to look at the origin. "Oh boy, I know that look." The AI said. His avatar was being projected in emerald light from a small hologram disk built into the table. He had the form of a young man in a Shinobi uniform from Suna back before the Treaty of Unification.

"We have a mission to do Rolo." She responded, holding her hand out to hologram. The AI nodded with a stern expression and disappeared in a flash that went into Hannah's hand - into her Beta Nerves. A small icon of Rolo's face appeared in the bottom left corner of her vision. "You can review the call if you want, but first message every citizen of Shanxi."

_"Yes ma'am."_ The voice in her eardrums responded. It only took the super computer a microsecond to complete the task.

Hannah left her office as the beep signaling the connection was formed echoed from below her eardrums. "Citizens of Shanxi, this is Police Commissioner Hannah Shepard. I have just been contacted by the Kage of Gaia and placed in charge of you all until the foreseeable future." As see said this out loud, it was recorded and instantly transmitted to everyone who answered to Rolo's oneway message. The other police officers running around the hallways as she passed froze and stared at her in surprise, but quickly got back to sorting out all they could. "We know very little about this enemy that we face." She analyzed the data Udina sent her on the incoming ships as she entered the elevator and went down. Rolo assisted in looking for anything he thought was useful. "There are three ships total and they appear to have weapons capable of firing from atmosphere, though the strength of them is unknown." She stepped out of the elevator onto the first floor, the dozens of police officers saluting her, each hiding their fear very well. They _were_ professionals. "Every citizen is to retreat into the underground bunkers if they are close enough. If not, then find somewhere else to hide. Our main objective is to hold out until help arrives." She did not bother to say how far away that help was as she exited the building and entered the streets that were swarming with panicking people. "No one is to attempt evacuation unless you are on the far side of the planet." They would just get shot down anyway and on a lowly populated planet like Shanxi, in a budding system like Hong, there were very few - if any - usable spaceships anyway. Hannah looked upwards. She could not see the ships from here obviously, but they were definitely there. "May the Gods be with you." With a thought, she ended the broadcast.

"Ma'am."

Hannah jumped slightly and turned to see her many loyal officers standing behind her in formation. They looked just as terrified as she felt, but they did not run. "Get to the bunkers!" She yelled at them, but none moved. "What are you waiting for?"

"We're not leaving, Ma'am." One officer said and the fifty-three others nodded.

She looked at them with and angry glare. "Fine." Turning away she sighed as she focused on the sky again. "Thanks." She breathed out just above a whisper.

_"Accessing satellites."_ Rolo said in her head. Shanxi only had five artificial satellites, and of them only three were on the correct side of the planet at this time to be useful. _"Enemies are in orbit above the city."_ Hannah tensed, waiting for the shots to fired. It was her job to direct the people of this world and to do that she had to constantly be able to see what was going on. That is why she did not hide with the civilians.

A rather morbid thought crossed her mind. If Shanxi were to fall, it was still her job to save as many people - even those not on this planet - as possible. With a few choice thought commands, she started recording everything she saw and uploading the live feed to Skynet.

"This is Police Commissioner Hannah Shepard." She said out loud for the vid she was making. "And this is the invasion of Shanxi."

**'~,_,~'**

The turian leading the small three ship fleet - Admiral Arterius - looked down on the scans curiously. There were no other ships it could detect nearby and only one city on the planet's surface. It was unlikely that this was the unknown race's home planet as it was barely colonized, but that lack of ships made a strange puzzle. He ordered a dozen rounds sent from orbit into the city to test what the response would be. When nothing happened in return for a few buildings destroyed, he and the captains of the other ships came to the conclusion that this colony world was abandoned. Most probably, it had been the first colonization attempt of the species and it failed horribly. In a desperate plea to get home, the few survivors of the doomed colony must have tried to activate the local Mass Relay. With what was probably their only available space capable ship destroyed, they had no chance of leaving the planet.

Admiral Arterius felt almost bad for attacking them. Almost. But they had broken the law and needed to be punished. Who knows what could have happened had they activated the Relay.

Seeing as orbital rounds were notoriously bad for hitting small targets - like people - and would not be able to kill every last one of them, he ordered that all foot soldiers available to get into a drop ship to head towards the planet's surface.

After all, if their ships was so primitive - the one they destroyed did not even use a Mass Effect Core - then their ground weapons could not be anywhere near as good as the best the Turian Hierarchy had to offer.

**'~,_,~'**

Hannah winced at the fall of each building, but held her ground. She did not know if anyone was in those collapsing buildings and she did not want to find out at the moment.

There was a collective gasp from her fellow officers as the ships came into view. They were small and sleek, very much unlike human ships. Thankfully, they were also very different from the giant carapace of the Reaper.

_"Enemy drop ships touching down in the north section of the city."_ Rolo informed her.

Hannah blinked, not believing it for a moment. Why would they do such when they could just blast away from the sky. Oh well, no point in complaining. With a thought, she reasserted the command she gave Rolo earlier and messaged every member of Shanxi.

"This is Commissioner Shepard." She said aloud again. Why does she have to have such a long title? "It appears that the enemy has switched tactics. They have stopped orbital bombardment and are moving in ground forces. I hate to ask this but we need every able body we can get. If anyone who's hearing this can fight I ask you to help the police force drive them back." She disconnected the call and turned to fully face the men and women under her command. They had chosen to be police officers to stop crime, instead they were entering a war. "Everyone! Move out!"

"Yes Ma'am!" They chanted in unison.

**'~,_,~'**

::Kami they're ugly.::

Hannah had to hold back a snort of amusement as that text sent by one of her officers scrolled by the side of her vision. She had created a link between herself, her almost sixty officers, and the hundred or so civilians who replied that they would help.

Her makeshift army had quickly found the aliens that the first drop ship had let off and surrounded them without being seen. Some of her men were hidden in the shadows of alleys, others on the high roofs of the buildings. Hannah herself was on the fourth floor of a building that lined the street the aliens were currently walking down.

There were about two dozen of them here - the aliens that is - and the drop ship was resting not too far away. They stood in a rough circle and looked around with what she assumed was cation. They were probably disturbed that they did not run into a single person yet.

The aliens - and they were pretty damn ugly - were bipedal and roughly human shaped, but that was all they had in common with the average human. With three fingers and toes per limb and a reptilian/avian-like visage they were not a pretty sight. Their suits looked bulky, though maybe that was just because their bodies were oddly shaped under them. A few wore helmets, but most seemed to prefer a type of small screen that they kept over a single eye. It could be seen on the ones without helmets that they had a crest on their head and mandibles around where their mouth probably was.

::What are they holding?::

The question in text form scrolled down her vision and Hannah did not have an answer. Each of the aliens was holding a blocky... _thing_, keeping one end close to their face to look down the length of it while pointing the other end around threateningly as they moved down the street.

_"They appear to be guns."_ A strangely deep voice echoed in Hannah's brain through Skynet. Glancing at the icon that said who was talking, she nearly fell from her hiding space in an open window. It was actually ADAM, the original AI. _"While they were mostly gone by the time I was created, I have seen many images on them."_ The ancient AI continued, either not knowing the surprise that his involvement was giving her and her people or not caring enough to remark on it. _"The weapons share little similarities physically to the guns of old, but the way they are holding them is remarkably similar."_

It took Hannah a few seconds to compose herself. ADAM rarely, if ever, got involved in anything. Finally she managed to send a message in reply to the original AI, though did so silently so as not to alert the aliens on the streets below.

::What did these guns do?::

Instead of voicing a reply, ADAM sent her a vid, a _really_ old vid if the quality was anything to go by. It was forwarded to all those who volunteered to fight the aliens so that they could see too. The old video showed a blurry image of an average human holding a long stick of some sort. The human moved his hand slightly and the stick jerked up with a loud bang not dissimilar to that of a Taihou Seal going off. The video cut off then and ADAM spoke back up. _"The old version fired a small metal pellet at high enough speeds to puncture skin. They were the main weapon used by Eden in the War of Duality."_

::That sounds like a Taihou Seal.:: One of the civilians sent back.

_"They inspired the Taihou Seal."_ ADAM confirmed. _"Try to take one of the weapons intact, I am interested in how they work."_ The AI cut the connection.

Hannah gave a small smile. While it was kind of hidden, the fact that the greatest computer humans have ever made believed that they would fair well enough against the aliens to take one of their weapons meant a lot to her. Seeing the slight curve of the lips on the officer next to her, she knew many others saw it the same way.

Running her hand over the government-issued gloves with metal knuckles and the latest Taihou Seal inscribed on the palm, she got on her 'Game Face', as her subordinates called it.

::Rolo, are there any other enemies in the area?::

_"No. The drop ships are landing all over the city. The twenty-five aliens you see down there are the only ones in a 500 yard radius."_

::Good, chose a person with working Taihou Gloves for each alien and mark targets.::

The AI acknowledged her command and one of the aliens standing in the street below lit up red in her vision. No doubt in the natural HUD of twenty-four others had different aliens marked similarly.

::Everyone with an indicator take aim.:: She raised her right arm and held it out straight, her palm facing the alien she had marked. She could make out a few other people doing the same, the rest must have been hidden well. When Rolo informed her that they all had taken careful aim, she sent another message. ::Fire!:: A small burst of Chakra was sent to her palm, igniting the seal.

The distinct _bang_ of twenty-five small metal orbs reentering the physical plane and breaking the sound barrier was incredibly loud in the tense silence. Twenty-two of them hit their mark. None of them drew blood.

_"What the?"_ Someone broke the silence over their Skynet group, not that Hannah could blame him. Instead of hitting armor or flesh, the metal balls each hit a bright blue barrier that popped up around each alien the moment before contact.

The aliens were surprised and disoriented for a moment before they all pointed their strange weapons on the humans they could now see as they came out of cover. Hannah managed to dive out of the open space of the window just as the rain of metal passed by where she was a moment ago. The officer who had been standing beside her was not as lucky as his head and chest was practically ripped open by the onslaught.

_"Barriers!"_ Rolo said through Skynet to everyone in their group - those surviving at least. In the instant the shields had sprang into sight, he had already fully analyzed them. _"Similar to those used by biotics it seems, but only activate to stop things that are coming at high velocities."_

Hannah cursed loudly as she pressed her back against the wall and leaned slightly to look out the window. She had to pull back sharply when one of the 'guns' pointed at her again. "What I wouldn't give for something with an Exploding Seal on it." Unfortunately, those were not police issue and she was rubbish at Fuinjutsu. Not for the first time, she wished that Jutsu and other ninja tricks were available on Skynet, but besides the very basics of things all of those fancy abilities were passed down through families.

_"On it Ma'am."_ Hannah blinked at the unexpected reply from five people in her group. She had forgotten that just cause she was bad at the art of seals does not mean everyone was. A few seconds later, she got five confirmations of the seals being finished.

"Throw them into the group!" She leaned out of cover again to see five objects - ranging from a rusty can to a almost new shoe that someone must have been wearing just before - with hurriedly drawn seals etched on them thrown at the group of aliens who had taken cover behind the vehicles lining the street as a few humans continued to shoot at them. A moment later four exploded - the last one was done in such a hurry that it was a dud. The explosions badly damaged seven of the aliens and knocked all of them off balanced. In a split second the Commissioner made a decision that could make or break this battle. If high velocity projectiles failed, then they had to use something other than Taihou Seals. "Everyone, move in for close quarter combat!"

Not bothering to wait to see if they would follow - though she knew that they would - Hannah jumped out of the fourth floor window, pulling a knife from her belt pouches and into each hand as she went. Her jump was perfectly executed as her feet collided with the shoulders - at least they looked like shoulders, maybe it was different on an alien? - of one of the attackers and they both fell to the ground. Seeing as she did not know the alien's anatomy, she went for the weakness in all species that she knew of: the eyes. Her dual knives struck forward before the alien could even catch its breath after hitting the pavement so harshly. They sunk into the dark eyes - this alien was one that did not wear a helmet - and sank down up to the handle. Just for good measure, Hannah supercharged her Chakra and sent a significant amount of volts through the blades. The alien twitched beneath her slightly before falling limp into a smoking mass. Definitely dead now.

Yanking the knives out with a grunt - idly noticing that their blood was dark blue - Hannah launched herself at her next target.

**'~,_,~'**

Admiral Arterius would admit only to himself that he was not paying attention to the ground battle. It was in his belief that it would be so one sided it would be more of a massacre than a battle. And that is why he was surprised when communications with one of his ground troops patched through directly to him.

_"Sir! There's something wrong here!"_

The turian looked down at the holographic interface that showed the casualties. There were some, yes, but that was to be expected. Though they were a little high... "What do you mean?"

_"These aliens! They're something strange about them, they-"_ The saw a loud snapping sound as the voice suddenly stopped.

"Soldier!" Nothing came through again. "Respond now!"

**'~,_,~'**

Hannah looked down at the alien whose neck she had just snapped after sneaking up behind him. She was pretty sure it was dead, so why was there an oddly small voice coming from it? Well, she assumed it was a voice. Just to be certain it was dead, she raised a foot and stomped down on the creature's torso until the metal armor and ribcage - if it had one - gave way in a spurt of blue blood. Bending down and pulling off the helmet this one wore, the little voice grew slightly louder, though it was in an odd language she had no hope of understanding.

_"It appears that they use a radio of sorts to communicate." _Rolo said in her head. The AI had been able to scan the helmet through Hannah's eyes.

Hannah could only think about how ineffective a radio would be... Unless they didn't have something like Skynet!

::Rolo!:: She silently sent the text to the AI. If this was the way they communicated, she did not want it to hear her. ::See if you can hack their systems through the radio. Learn what you can.::

_"Right away, Hannah."_ The icon that represented that Rolo was inside her Beta Nerves disappeared from her HUD and a light jumped from her hand into the helmet. She would have to hold onto the alien armor piece until Rolo came back, but that was of little consequence.

Just as she was about to rush back into the battle that she could hear continuing all over the city, she noticed a civilian woman kneeling down next to the alien she just killed. "Hey! Get away from that!"

"No." The woman said without even looking up as her hands moved over the armor, trying to find a way to take it off by the looks of it.

"It could still be alive!" Just after Hannah retorted, the other woman managed to open up the front of the armor, revealing a large crater - about the size of her foot, go figure - in the middle of the alien's chest. The civilian gave her a deadpan look. "R-Right, well, who knows what that thing can recover from?"

"No one, that's why I plan to find out." At seeing Hannah's confused look, the middle aged average human whose blonde hair was beginning to gray rolled her eyes. "I may not be a fighter, but I am a _doctor_. I can tell you exactly what it takes to kill these things, something I know you need." Looking back down at the corpse, her hands glowing a bright green. "Go Commissioner, you're supposed to be fighting out there. I'm just the one who will tell you how and patch you up when its over." When Hannah did not move, the civilian sent her one last look.

Hannah did not even need to think about it - that look gave an uncomfortable reminder of when she angered her mother - before turning and running out of the alley, back into the fight. Besides, in a back alley like this, it was unlikely the civilian would be attacked.

**'~,_,~'**

A woman ran through the hallways of an otherwise abandoned building. She looked like an average human, sans her obviously demonic teeth that all resembled sharp fangs. In her arms she held a crying baby - her baby girl to be exact. The woman had not been able to get to one of the underground bunkers in time as she was on the building roof.

She turned around the corner of hallway and came to an abrupt stop with a yelp. Around the corner were five of the aliens that were laying siege to her city. All five - two of them pointing their weapons out the window - looked up at her scream. The woman managed to dive to the side just as they pointed their weapons - guns ADAM had called them - at her.

She ran back down the hall and three of the aliens came running in pursuit. Just as they turned the corner to the long hallway, they stopped and raised their weapons to take aim. Three high speed rounds collided with the woman with spurts of crimson blood. She collapsed on the ground on top of her crying baby.

**'~,_,~'**

Hannah screamed as she was suddenly airborne and crashing into a store window. Painfully sliding over the broken glass, she hissed in pain at as blood dripped from her many small wounds.

An alien wreathed in dark energy - a biotic - slowly walked in after her. The cocky bastard was giving what she believed was the alien equivalent of a smirk, its gun held loosely in its talons. It flicked its free hand and Hannah was thrown against the far wall, dropping the confiscated helmet and her knives in the process. She felt cold metal press against her temple and looked up to see the alien looking down at her, putting its gun to her head.

Hannah felt her hands touch something sharp and cold.

The alien's finger twitched.

**'~,_,~'**

Thirteen humans, nine of which were police officers, crouched behind a line of cars that was taking heavy fire from a line of aliens. One man poked his head out from behind the cover. It would not last much longer.

A bullet hit the center of his forehead.

**'~,_,~'**

_The history stories of both sides are never quiet able to grasp the battle of Shanxi. To fully understand how the battle flowed, you have to understand the human's perspective during the whole thing. They had no idea what they were fighting or how to fight it, but that does not mean that they're hopeless._

_Fighting had been in the blood of humans for countless millennia. Even after the standing military was disbanded, humans fought not in wars, but among friends and family as a pleasant past time. It became a tradition for parents to pass their fighting skills onto their children. Humans knew how to fight, they were just too scared of this unknown species to try. No one knew what it would take do kill this enemy, and that terrified them._

_Or at least, they did not know at first._

**'~,_,~'**

The middle aged blonde doctor took one last look before publishing all her findings of the autopsy to Skynet.

**'~,_,~'**

Rolo finished going through the ocean of new information, getting all he could in the time frame he was comfortable with. It was impossible for an AI to access Skynet unless they were inside someone's Beta Nerves or in a specialized hologram platform. This was actually the first time in his 'life' that Rolo had not been connected to Skynet, and he did not want to stay like that for any longer if not necessary.

With a few thousand commands, taking only four milliseconds, the AI used the alien's strange wireless technology to transport back to the helmet he entered it through.

**'~,_,~'**

Hannah growled in annoyance at the alien. She tried to come up with something to do to fight back, but without knowing what the alien was capable of - besides being a biotic and having those annoying shields - she could not think of anything well planned out. Just as she was about to wing it, a message on the corner of her vision drew her attention. Recognizing the profile picture of the civilian doctor and noting the name of 'Helen Chakwas', she accessed the file with a thought.

In a shorter time frame than it took for the alien above her to decide to pull the trigger, Hannah had already found the sentence in the file that - at the moment - she felt was most important.

::... and they lack regenerative properties.::

Her hand tightened on the unknown sharp object under her hand - cutting into her fingers in the process - and she swung it up with all the force she could manage. The object - a sword! - flew past and neatly lopped off the three-fingered hand holding the gun with little resistance.

In the second it took for the alien to register his now amputated hand that they now both knew would not grow back, Hannah had rolled to her feet and found the next phrase in Chakwas' report that she felt was important.

::They are single jointed in each limb, and the joints go roughly in the same direction as humans.::

Hannah maneuvered the katana she came into possession of in a way that showed her experience with such a weapon. Quickly moving to properly hold its handle, she lashed out and hit the butt of the weapon against the outside of the alien's elbow on his still intact arm. A moment later, her leg swept up and did the same with one of its knees. Both joints broke with a snap.

::Their diaphragm is slightly higher than that of a humans in reference to their pelvis.:: The report continued.

She buried her the fist she made around the sword's handle in the aliens diaphragm, cracking the armor and knocking the air out if its lungs. Lungs that she just read that they do have.

::Their esophagus is set between their spine and a layer of scales. It would take approximately 1.7 times the force to disrupt a human's breathing as it would an alien's.::

Her free hand came up in a palm thrust that met the alien's throat. There was a crunch of the scales breaking and a strangled gasp as its windpipe was at least bruised, probably worse. Tightening her fingers on the neck, she lifted the alien as she stood up to her full height.

With her being a few inches taller than the alien, she was able to lift it a full eight inches off the ground.

::They are like humans in that decapitation and puncturing the heart are definite kills.::

The avian-like creature opened its dark eyes weakly as blue blood dripped from its mandibles. It gave a strangled gasp before the sharp sword passed through its neck, less than an inch under Hannah's hand. The body fell while the head stayed in her grasp. The Commissioner looked at the now dull eyes for a little bit before throwing it away.

She did not even bother to look down and check herself as her small wounds from broken glass and the sword were already healed for the most part. For a hanyo like her, these little injuries were only annoyances.

_"Hannah! Are you there?"_

She looked sharply at the dropped helmet as the voice of Rolo came from it.

**'~,_,~'**

The turians looked at the downed woman, still hearing the crying of the child. They were about to turn and go back into the room they were using for a sniping post when their prey jerked to the side and jumped to her feet, moving like she had not just been shot three times. The crying baby was safely wrapped in a blanket and lying on the floor behind her. She made certain to stand between her little girl and the aliens.

Through her anger, the woman could ignore the pain as she scrolled through the medical message. Not thinking clearly after having her baby girl nearly hurt, she only really cared to note one line in particular.

::... their scales also offer a natural resistance to heat and fire, but not to any great extent. ::

With a roar that showed her vocal cords were also a demonic trait like her teeth, the Izanami Seal that covered most of her body glowed brightly in tandem with the sudden influx of Chakra through her body. A small fire built up in her esophagus...

**'~,_,~'**

The rain of bullets on the line of cars temporarily stopped as a giant fiery explosion came from one of the nearby buildings, more specifically the room the aliens were getting sniping support from. In the small lull of battle, one of the humans behind the line of cars worked up enough courage to act. The civilian stood up sharply and raised his leg as his Izanami Seal began to glow brightly, delivering a kick to the side off one of the cars. With his already impressive natural strength augmented with his own Chakra along with the Nature Chakra given to him by the Izanagi Seed growing inside of him, the kick was _very_ strong.

The metal vehicle - weighting just under two tons - dented and flew through the air like a cheap cardboard box. The aliens scattered to get away from the oncoming cover-turned-projectile, not all of them made it.

A new message went around through Skynet by Rolo to the people of Shanxi, this one regarding the technology of the aliens. And there was _a lot_ of information. One line of the message was deemed important though and sent to everyone in big bold letters.

::The alien's shields will only stop objects traveling at high speeds. They will also collapse if enough strain is put on them.::

The twelve humans who were hiding behind the cars all read that line quickly so that by the time the aliens - turians the new message said they were called - were about to open fire again, the nine police officers raised both their hands, each clad in standard issue Taihou Seal Gloves.

"Fire!" One of them shouted. At once, all nine of the officers poured Chakra into both gloves.

The hundreds of metal balls, each no bigger than a marble, broke the sound barrier nearly simultaneously, temporarily deafened everyone there.

The surviving turians' shields lasted a good two seconds, a rather impressive feat considering the situation.

The aliens exploded in showers of blue blood shortly thereafter.

**'~,_,~'**

_Once humans knew what they were fighting, they saw no reason to fear it. These turians were not - as many feared them to be - as dangerous and indestructible as the Reaper from many millennia ago that to this day was used in stories to scare children into obedience._

_These were not like the Reaper, they were nowhere near as powerful. Turians could be fought on more or less even footing._

_They could be killed._

_And when 99.9% of humans in the galaxy had an inborn love for violence, the ability to bend nature to their will, and years of practice with spars often done between friends and family, nothing weaker than a Reaper stood much of a chance against them._

**'~,_,~'**

Explosions rocked the city as fighter ships flew over. Hannah scowled at the alien crafts flying above. They must have been pretty certain of their aerial abilities if they risked flying so close to the skyscrapers... Her eyes widened and a smirk formed across her lips.

With a quick message around the group to tell them her plan and an almost instantaneous calculation by Rolo - who was back in her Beta Nerves - to find the optimal timing, she sprinted directly at the nearest building. At the last moment before she collided with the structure, she jumped off the ground and pressed her foot against the vertical glass and metal. Then the other foot followed. Soon enough she was running straight up the building. It mattered little to any human who saw her casually defy gravity, but more than a few turians stared when they should have been shooting. Just within her limited range of vision she could make out five of her followers doing the same after getting her message.

She scaled the metal structure and reached the ledge of the roof within the minute. Not pausing, she planted her feet on the ledge and pushed off with all she had.

It was perfectly executed.

Just as Hannah reached the apex of her jump, one of the fighter ships collided with her, surprising the pilot as she seemed to have come out of nowhere. The Commissioner groaned at the impact. If she did not stay still for a minute or so to let them heal, the damaged blood vessels beneath her skin would form a wonderful bruise over most of her body. She had to brush off the brief pain as the ship went into a barrel roll - the pilot's attempt to shake her off. It did little good as Hannah's hands and feet stuck to the machine like glue.

She gave a grunt of annoyance and let go of the ship with one hand, grabbing the sword she found earlier. It had proven to be very helpful and she had slid it into her belt for her daring climb. Pulling it free and moving to hold it in reverse grip above her head, she lit it up with lightning affinity Chakra and plunged it down. The glass that separated her from the alien - specially designed to be able to deal with atmospheric reentry - was punctured easily by the piercing power of the electrically-augmented blade.

Dragging the blade to the side, she released her Chakra hold on the craft and got caught by the wind, dragging her back along the ship with her sword cutting a deep grove in the metal. Accidentally, she hit the power core of the ship. The Element Zero reacted to the electrifying puncture and did the one thing it was famous for to humans.

_BOOM_

Hannah was thrown abruptly to the side at the blast of blue radiation.

_"Hannah!"_ She heard as she fell, blinded and burnt from the explosion.

She managed to make out the roof in her blurry, swirling vision before she collided with it.

**'~,_,~'**

A turian ship touched down unknowingly on the same roof not five minutes later. This battle was not going as expected for the avian species. These strange aliens just seemed to never stay down, and the things they were doing should not be possible.

One of the disembarking turians spotted a charred corpse not to far away, one that was decidedly not of his own species. Figuring that it would be a good idea to take it back so that their doctors could find out more, he moved to pick it up by the scraps of cloth that were still attached to it. Unfortunately, he did not know however, that even an average human would have been able to sufficiently heal from a fall and burns - that were actually not as bad as they appeared - like that in around twelve minutes.

_"...nah! Han..."_

He also did not know that hanyos healed even faster than that.

_"... HANNAH!"_

Green eyes snapped open and her arm blurred, a delicate looking fist smashed into the turian's knee, snapping it backwards. His cry of pain was cut short as a sword that somehow managed to stay in her grasp during the explosion and resulting skydive darted out and stabbed him between the eyes as he buckled forward.

The other turians moving out of the ship turned at the cry of pain. They fired at the burnt woman, who grabbed the armor collar of the turian she just killed and held him up as a meat shield. After a few seconds of gunfire, a plan was formed and she threw the corpse at the turians attacking her and rolled to the side.

Just as she came out of the roll she flicked her wrist. The sword was once again coated in lightning and thrown with expert precision, soon finding itself in the chest cavity of one of the avian creatures. The lightning covering the blade was then released, blowing the turian's chest open like a punctured water balloon, before arcing to strike the nearest conductors it could find. Four more turians were violently electrocuted and collapsed - though wether they were dead or unconscious she did not know.

Hannah raised her arms, firing a long string of metal orbs from the Taihou Seal on her right glove - the glove on her left hand was rendered useless from the explosion. The shots rang against a turian's shields that collapsed soon enough, the next few rounds reducing its head to goo.

Bullets met the flesh of her shoulder and she rolled away before more than two could properly connect. Spying the final alien on the roof, she sprang forward, ignoring the sudden sharp pain in her leg. The crown of her head collided with the turian's chest plate with enough force to crack it and throw him over the edge of the the building. The alien screamed as it fell to its death.

Panting, Hannah fell on her ass. Messages were being sent from anyone on Shanxi who was still alive and not hidden away. They varied in wording, but all meant the same thing.

_"They're retreating."_ Rolo said in her head, the smile easily heard in his tone. _"You did it, Hannah."_

She gave a laugh. "Good. That's real good." Falling from her crouched position to lie on her back, she stared up at the blue sky with a smile as dozens of alien ships flew away... Her eyes widened and she jerked back to a sitting position. With a thought, she sent another message to every citizen of Shanxi. "Everyone! Get to the bunkers! Now!"

_"Hannah?" _Rolo asked, confused by the panic in her voice no doubt. He was ignored by the frantic woman.

"I repeat, get to the bunkers! With their forces leaving they can continue orbital bombardment!"

Rolo gasped from within her mind. Hannah tried to stand so that she could run as well but fell back down with a cry of pain. Looking down, she saw that there was a large, deep gash down her thigh oozing so much blood she could see it pulsing. It would heal in a few minutes if she remained still, but...

_"Incoming projectiles!"_ The AI in her head shouted.

... she might not survive a few minutes.

**'~,_,~'**

The turian leading the fleet gave a cry of anger, breaking the standard cold persona he was supposed to hold. When the casualties raised from acceptable to on the high side, he began to worry. When they sharply rose again to highly improbable, he thought it was a computer malfunction, as had been known to happen, rarely. When the casualties rose to that of a slaughter and soldiers were calling in screaming about monsters and magic, he order a retreat.

Whatever these things were, if they could not be beat on the ground, then so be it.

"All surviving soldiers are off the surface!" One of surrounding techs yelled.

"I want all guns aimed at that city!" He barked back immediately. When he got the conformation that his order had been filled out, he gave the turian equivalent of a grimace. "Burn it to the ground!"

"Yes Sir!"

**'~,_,~'**

As Hannah's world turned to fire and she knew it was over. The deafening, blinding explosion was the the preface to her death, she knew that. The reason she was crying was not that though, it was because she had failed to protect everybody. Shanxi was dead.

When she heard the second explosion, she figured that they were just shooting everywhere at random and had failed to hit the building she was on yet.

When she heard the third she thought they were starting on the other side of the city.

When she heard the tenth and still no flames reached her skin, she grew confused. She cleared her eyes of moisture and looked up just in time for the eleventh explosion... way, _way_ above in sky.

Her own confusion was matched by that of hundreds of others which was circling through Skynet. The orbital rounds were detonating at least three miles above the city, way to far away to be of any danger.

"I missed most of the action then? That's too bad." It took Hannah a moment to realize that the voice - the strange, masculine voice that did funny things with her stomach - did not come over Skynet but from right next to her and that the roof that previously held only her and corpses now had another living individual.

With a jerk, Hannah scooted away from the voice, preparing to be attacked - though she had no idea why as the person obviously spoke her language. She stopped though when she caught sight of the new person's face. Her mouth fell open and eyes widened.

_"Holy crap!"_ Rolo, who could only look through her eyes, shouted in surprise. The AI never cursed, but this was worht it.

The man was a human, though not like any she had ever seen in person. He had no markings of an Izanami Seal and his facial features looked slightly off. Despite that, she instantly knew who he was. If the famous spiky blond hair did not give it away then the signature whisker-like marks would have.

"Na-Na-Na-" Hannah could only become a stuttering mess as she stared up at the face that was more often than not found in history and children stories. She did not know that he ever left Seidou, let alone Gaia!

Naruto Uzumaki looked down at her with the brightest blue eyes she has ever seen. The moment their eyes met, Hannah felt her blood freeze from the intensity of the look. He blinked once before looking away. "Am I to assume that you're Hannah Shepard?"

Hannah could only blink stupidly, the little part of herself that still acted like a child was jumping for joy that the man who was literally the idol of _every_ human in the galaxy knew her name, while most of her was shivering from the fear she felt when he looked at her. She was brought back to reality when another explosion rocked her eardrums. Her head snapped up, only to find that the bombardment was still being stopped by an unknown force... She looked back at the blonde legend with wide eyes.

"Are you..." She lost the ability to speak when his eyes went back to her.

"Am I what?" _Sweet Kami does his voice have to sound like that_.

Unable to answer, Hannah jerked her head upward just as another explosion went off in the air. His gaze travelled upwards and away from her, much to Hannah's relief. "Ah, that. Yes, that's me." He looked back at her, stealing her breath again. "So, I ask again, are you Hannah Shepard." He repeated,

Unable to answer with her soul feeling like it was being frozen, she could only jerkily nod. Naruto looked away, back to sky. "Good. Now, how to deal with this situation?" He spoke aloud, probably to himself. "I don't suppose you have some way to properly talk to them?" This question was obviously directed at Hannah.

Internally happy that he did not look back at her with that unnerving gaze, the Commissioner managed to answer. "I'm sorry, but Rolo was unable to grasp their language enough to translate to it."

"Rolo?" His voice - _Oh, that voice_ - showed his confusion.

"An AI."

He made a noise of understanding. "Too bad... Maybe I can Shunshin to their ship and try and work something out directly..." He was talking to himself again, but Hannah was able to hear him clearly over the explosions. Were eyes widened even further.

_SHUNSHIN from planet side to a SPACESHIP? No one cane do that!... well, I don't think that anyone can do that._

Before her disbelief could go any farther, she received a notice that someone was calling her. For a moment she thought about dismissing it, but it was from an old friend who she hadn't talked to in a while. Seeing that, she accepted.

_"Hannah, glad that you picked up."_ The familiar voice sounded in her head.

"This had better be important, Ken." Naruto glanced at her curiously. She made certain to avoid eye contact so that she could retain the ability to speak properly.

_"I'd like to think that me being stuck on an alien ship would be important."_ Hannah gasped. _"I was knocked out and apparently take prisoner."_

"Don't worry, we'll get you out of there!" She shouted back.

_"Don't bother."_ Hannah could only gape when she heard that. _"I got a pretty nasty scratch and I don't think it'll heal soon enough for me to survive."_

"We have doctors!"

_"To far away."_

Her anger and fear boiling over, she snapped at her friend. "Why were you even on Shanxi? I thought you were living with your family!"

_"I was."_

The air in her throat caught and nearly choked her. "Are they-"

_"No, I just contacted them before you. Both Martha and the girls are alive."_ Hannah let out a relieved sigh. _"But I know I won't be able to see them again. I just wanted to say goodbye. I'll be landing on the main ship, or at least one of them soon."_

"Ken!" The call cut out. "KEN!"

**'~,_,~'**

Ken Williams grunted as the drop ship he was dragged into touched down, rather harshly. The alien that was flying it came towards him then, waving its gun threateningly. He was very badly injured - his left arm below his elbow had been smashed by a section of a building that fell on it, a deep gash diagonally ran down his chest and he did not even remember how he got it, and his tail that marked him as a hanyo was broken in five places. Still, he managed to kill the alien with some effort. Unfortunately it was a loud process and attracted many others.

As the turians tried to come aboard the ship he was on, Ken clumsily fired a burst with the bizarre weapon - a 'gun - he confiscated from the still cooling corpse. He tried to concentrate through the pain to make a mental connection to an ally, though not via Skynet.

_Can you hear me?_ He sent his thoughts through a connection that forms when a person uses the ancient technique of becoming an ally with an animal through what is called a Summoning Contract.

**_I can._** The response from very far away came almost immediately. **_What is it you need of me now?_** He sounded angry, but he always did anyway.

_I'm dying._ As if to articulate the point, he spit out the blood that was gathering in his mouth._ As a last wish, I need you to save my family._

There was a pause. **_I can do this._**

_Good._ Ken sent another volley of bullets at a turian, but the gun stopping working with a unpleasant choking like sound. Seeing as it seemed to be broken now, he threw it away and concentrated. To summon his ally over such a great distance would be difficult. Not impossible, but it would use up the rest of his Chakra.

He would also need quiet a bit of blood.

He screamed in pain as his hand dug into the wound on his chest, blood pooling beneath him. The next turian that came around the corner was so surprised at seeing this that it did not shoot Ken, instead calling over its allies. Ken Williams ignored this and continued to gather the Chakra necessary.

In truth, the turians were not the first alien race humans encountered. Ignoring the Reaper - that was believed to be from space though never proven - they had met to this day five others species. The difference now was that turians were the first species they've met that had anything resembling technology, or even a half decent understanding of mathmatics. Ken was one of those who had discovered one of the five alien species, years before he met his now wife Martha when he was a young adventurer of the stars.

He had found the species while exploring the planet of Akuze.

He ignored the turians hovering around him as he sat in a pool of his own blood - they probably thought he was dead with how still he was. In truth it was easier to gather the Natural Chakra given off by the Izanagi Seed inside of him if he was not moving.

The aliens were so surprised when his one intact arm suddenly moved and slammed onto the ground covered in his blood that they could not stop it, not that they had any particular reason to. Sucks for them.

They had only a second to contemplate the thick black lines that spider-webbed out in all directions from the human's hand before their lives abruptly ended.

**'~,_,~'**

Admiral Arterius scowled at the news that the prisoner they had down in the docking bay had killed itself. Could this day possibly get any worse?

A sudden cry of alarm over the coms was the last thing he heard.

**'~,_,~'**

The biggest of the three turian ships - a dreadnought - broke apart. The roars of those responsible were lost in the vacuum of space, but they were there. Not one, nor two, but _three_ fully grown thresher maws erupted from the ship, tearing it apart with ease. One of the massive carnivorous worms managed to make it to a second, smaller ship. The great maw that it was known for tore into the metal in just the right place to compromised the Element Zero core. With a blue flash, the ship violently evaporated as well. The three great worms vanished before they could be seriously hurt by the explosion or lack of air, leaving behind two destroyed ships and hundreds of dead turians. Had there been air, the worms would have come and gone in a large cloud of smoke.

The captain of third and last turian ship in the system could only gape at the wreckage. What just happened? Thresher maws in space? The only conclusion he could come to was that this was caused by the screwed up new species they found, and that was not a comforting thought.

Once he metaphorically regained the eyes that fell out of his head and picked his mandibles up off the floor, the captain ordered a full retreat.

Of the four-and-a-half thousand turians that came into this system, only three hundred left.

**'~,_,~'**

Back on Shanxi, a woman cried as Doctor Chakwas removed the three bullets from her back. Her youngest daughter was in her arms and asleep while her oldest sat beside her, crying as well. The Williams family would forever be without a husband and father.

* * *

**I do not have faith in fanficdotnet's ability to transfer all characters, so I hope that what if left those scene breaks as is usable. Also, if any part of this chapter has something wrong with it, blame the website. It's probably my fault, but I would prefer if you blamed someone else so that my precious little bit of confidence survives. *sniff**sniff* You guys won't be mean, right?**

**Explanation time!**

**Chakra is still around and I reserve the right to assume that space traveling ninjas will still use knives and swords. If you have proof that this is wrong, I would love to see it.**

**Skynet is literally a part of their bodies, kinda. They can record videos things with their eyes and audio with their ears. They can think a text message into existence and send it away silently. With the nanobot nerve things, they can store digital information (and AIs) inside of their own bodies.**

**The Taihou Seal will be a big part of the story. It was inspired by Kai Lang's strange palm-mounted pistol thing. It's basically a gun in the palm of your hand... with _a lot_ more ammo.**

**It may seem like at this point that everyone is a hanyou, but that was more by accident than anything else. I'll try to keep the ratio of average humans to half-demons lower in future chapters.**

**Any Mass Effect fans should be able to guess who Ken Williams and Hannah Shepard are respectively related to. Just sayin'.**

**If I did not answer something it means that I forgot about it or it will be part of the story in later chapters. If you really are that curious, then come back later after the next update.**

**Until next time,  
- - Sorcerer of the East**


	3. Cross the Galaxy

**Greetings everyone. I'm surprised that I remembered about saying I was going to update on Friday, but here I am! I'm even more surprised that I stopped playing Halo 4 (which is _amazing!_) to post this. I am even more surprised that the people are still reviewing this story. So thank you for those who left the new 31 reviews that have been added between the posting of the last chapter and this one.**

**But there is one thing that I forgot... well, that I remember now at least. By my weird version of humanity, the year is 51-something-something. This is more because I wanted it to be like this. But according to the lump of jello and powdered eggs that I call a brain, this does not in anyway differentiate from the Mass Effect timeline. I even helped my bizarre train of thought and just added 3000 yeas to this story's ****calendar. So, the Reapers have not yet invaded and all the ME characters are still here.**

**If any part of that paragraph makes sense to you, then bless you. If any part of this story makes sense to you, praise you. If this _entire_ story so far makes sense to you, then you are a better person than I.**

**I like this Fibonacci pattern or whatever it's called that I've had with updates so far, but because this chapter and the next are more filler than not and I don't want you all to dwell on it. So, the next chapter (if I remember and there are no technical difficulties) will be out Sunday.**

"Text like this is talking normally."

_"Text like this is being said through a radio or Skynet or something else like that."_

::Text like this is being being read, like on paper or Skynet or something.::

**Posted: 1/4/2013  
Word count: 10,432  
Brief Summary: The asari consider the humans and vise versa. Kinda filler-ish but I did not want to summarize it later and it ended up being this long.**

**Hope you enjoy.**

* * *

**Chapter 3**

**Cross the Galaxy**

* * *

_The First Contact War began and ended within a day. The human casualties at 476, including the science team that was shot down before the battle reached Shanxi._

_Ken Williams was given the title of Sannin - something only given to great war heroes - postmortem. He was the first to receive the title since the Reaping War._

_By morning the next day, twenty starships retrofitted with new and untested space weapons orbited Shanxi, with more and more moving in. They made certain to not move all of their forces to one area in case they were attacked in a completely different system._

_The Systems Alliance decided to reinstate a standing military, and volunteers were of no shortage with the vid created by Hannah Shepard being wide spread. However, it would take some time before a proper chain of command, supplies, and other things needed could be formed and gathered. In the mean time, all citizens were temporarily removed from Shanxi and evacuated to the nearest colonized system._

_Many were expecting the battle to continue, but it did not._

**'~,_,~'**

**Codex Update**

SCI (Ship Control Interface): As with all things made by humans, starships work with a combination of technology and Fuinjutsu. The SCI has been the method of controlling and maneuvering starships since the original lunar landing. The modern SCI is much more advanced, and has since then spread to be used in common vehicles such as cars, boats, and trains. It is an intricate and confusing web of black lines that make up the seal to control the vehicles, but how to work it is common knowledge, like riding a bike or walking up a tree. But just because you know how to work it does not mean you're good at it.

Skynet Node: Skynet does not directly connect one human to another. Rather, it connects both of them to Eve, with which they can exchange information through. If a ship is traversing Hyperspace, all humans on it cannot connect to Eve and - by extension - each other. To relieve at least some of the stress, all ships are built with a node that allows all humans on it to remain connected to each other during Hyperspace. They cannot contact those outside of the ship, nor can they access the large bank of knowledge, but it is still much preferred to the otherwise silence.

**'~,_,~'**

Hannah Shepard sat on the bed in the room she was given aboard the SSV_ Kametachi_, one of many ships that were now orbiting the abandoned planet of Shanxi. A few hours after the only surviving turian ship retreated, the first of the human ships began to arrive. Hannah chose to stay with the growing fleet instead of leaving for another colony. If the turians came back, she wanted to fight them dammit!

It was not long ago that the adrenaline wore off and Hannah collapsed on her bed. Pain from slowly healing injuries and strained muscles was the least of what was worrying her.

Because now she could not forget their faces.

At the time, she was high on the blood rapidly pumping through her heart and they did not register. Now though, nothing was stopping the images she had in her head from coming forth. Images of death, blood, and fear. She had watched the vid she recorded and could not even remember half the things it showed her doing. When did she wade through that flaming wreckage? When had she passed those crying families? When had she ignored those bloodied corpses? Why did she not save that person when she could have?

People were calling her a hero, but after watching this how could they? She was supposed to protect everyone, but so many people died! She was no hero.

A knock on her door temporarily relieved her of her thoughts. "What do you want?" She called out in a hoarse voice.

"So you are alive." Well, she knew who it was now with how that voice sent her stomach into a series of backflips. "Can I come in?"

Hannah thought it over before looking to the corner desk where Rolo's avatar was being projected, the AI looking at her sadly. She nodded at her friend and the door slid open.

Naruto was dressed the same as he was when he first appeared next to her - black pants, orange shirt, and deep maroon coat. He still did not have shoes which confused her, not that she would ask.

The blonde legend took one look at her - his eyes thankfully no longer chilling her heart - and gave a sad smile that did the exact opposite. "First time on the battlefield?" She looked up at him sharply and he gave a small chuckle that made her lightheaded. "Don't look so surprised. Ignoring the fact that there hasn't been anything resembling a war since I blew up that purple lobster, I would know that look anywhere." Hannah had to stifle a laugh. She'd never heard anyone talk about the Reaper so casually before, or caller it a _lobster_. "Oh, but don't tell Gyuki I said that, he likes to think he was the one to put most of the power behind the blast." This time she did laugh. Naruto only nodded. "Feeling better now?"

Calming down, the Commissioner of an empty city felt as if the world had been lifted off of her shoulders. "Yeah, much better. Thank you." Naruto gave another smile that did funny things to her breathing. "Why are you talking to me so much? And how did you know my name before?" It had been bothering her for a while. Even joking with him like this, Naruto still seemed like a larger-than-life figure. Why would he care about little old Hannah... okay maybe old was a bad thing to be said in comparison to him but you get the point.

The legend shrugged. "The only reason I even heard about the attack in the first place was because Ben told me. He asked me to watch out for you as well."

Hannah blinked. "There are a lot of Bens out there." She was friends with half a dozen or so.

A thoughtful look passed over Naruto's face. "I think he's the leader of Gaia now, or did her already retire?"

Her eyes bulged out. "You mean _Benjamin_ Udina? The _Kage_ of Gaia asked you to watch out for me?"

"So he is still the leader." Naruto seemed pleased to have that confirmed. "I ran into him when he was a kid, he kept jumping around and asking for my autograph." Hearing the word he muttered to himself, Hannah was beginning to wonder if he was BS'ing her. That strict old guy she sees in vids of big political conferences jumping around like that? That would never happen. "Anyway, he managed to contact me through this old machine I have on Seidou and told be about you and what's going on."

"So you _were_ on Seidou." Rolo exclaimed loudly, drawing attention to his hologram in the corner of the room. It were physically possible, the AI probably would have blushed in embarrassment. As it were, he awkwardly coughed into his fist. "R-Right, well, how did you get to Shanxi so quickly?" His desperate attempt to get their attention away from himself worked.

Naruto just shrugged and looked back at Hannah. "I asked Eve to modify the seal of someone on Shanxi so that I could teleport to it. She just so happened to chose you."

Hannah gaped at him, again. She knew he could teleport, the Hiraishin Jutsu was one of the things he was most famous for. But the distance between Shanxi and Gaia was so great, there's no way he could do that... Right?

Footsteps drew the three's attention to the door as a young man stepped in. He jerked to stop when he saw Naruto, an understandable reaction. He stuttered for a few seconds before finally managing to speak in the presence of the living god. "S-S-S-Sir!" He jerkily turned to Hannah. "Ma'am! The Captain wishes for your presence on the bridge!" Having delivered his message, the young man gave one last stunned look at Naruto before leaving. Hannah just hoped she did not look that ridiculous when she first saw Naruto. Internally, she knew that she did.

**'~,_,~'**

Walking through the halls of the _Kametachi_ was an interesting experience for Hannah. Everyone they passed would stop whatever they were doing to stare at Naruto as they walked passed. The blonde seemed to ignore all of it but Hannah decided she felt very uncomfortable.

When they reached the bridge and met the Captain - one David Anderson - Hannah was met with a very solid frown from the dark skinned man. "Commissioner Shepard, I would appreciate it if you stopped dismissing all messages sent to you.

Hannah blinked, then nearly slapped herself when she remembered that she set her HUD to automatically dismiss any call sent to her, as she did not want to talk with anyone while she was in a depressed funk. _So that's why he sent an actual person to get me._ With a thought she dropped the blockade, wincing at the headache that came with the sudden influx of messages from friends and family, along with a few from unwanted fans. "Sorry Captain, it won't happen again."

Anderson nodded, before looking at Naruto and nodding to him as well. "A pleasure to meet you, Sir."

"Likewise, Captain." Naruto nodded in turn. "What do you need us here for?"

"There's an alien ship."

Out of the corner of her eyes, Hannah saw Naruto's visage harden into what it was on the roof on Shanxi. She was pleased to note that Anderson gave a slight shiver under his gaze as well, meaning that it was not just her who was scared by it. The Captain was quick to break eye contact and look back out the large window of the bridge. Hannah could just barely make out ship against the black of space.

"It has stopped within the reach of our weapons but our AI's scans show they have none of their own." Anderson continued. Unspoken was the caution with using said weapons of the _Kametachi_. They were untested. Maybe they would work, maybe they would not, it was a fifty/fifty chance.

"What are they doing then?" Hannah asked, only to get a shrug from the Captain. "What are _we_ going to do then?" He shrugged again.

"It could be a distraction, maybe a trap, I don't know."

"It's none of those things." They both turned back to Naruto, and were glad to find that his 'scary look' was gone. "A distraction would have attacked to draw our attention and a trap would have used the wreckage of our own ship or something more tantalizing." He gave a small smile. "This is a peace offering."

**'~,_,~'**

Matriarch Benezia would not have been able to keep the scowl off her face if she wanted to as she sent her simple message for what felt like the hundredth time. This new species that the council had ordered her to negotiate a peace with over what the turians did were not what she expected. The surviving turians from the unneeded assault said - after some rubbish about terrible monsters with magical powers - that they had no space worthy ships left in the system. Benezia had fully prepared to enter the planet's atmosphere but was instead met by a blockade of over fifty large, odd looking, blocky ships. Ships with weapons.

Still, she did not back down. She had confidence in her negotiating skills and - if worse came to worse - her pilot's skills behind the wheel.

The good news was that they were not firing at her. The bad news was that they were not returning her requests for communication.

"Can we leave now, all these ships are making me nervous." Her pilot, another asari by the name of Tela Vasir, complained as she had been doing since they got there. Though it was understandable as all the weapons she could see with her naked eye were trained on their small vessel.

"No. If we do not stop them, they could strike back at the turians. Who knows where it will go from there."

"Let them beat up the idiots!" Tela responded hotly. "They deserve it, I just don't want to get in the way."

Benezia said nothing - though she agreed that the turians were idiots for doing what they did - and was about to send her invitation again.

"Damn, they're doing something now." Tela gripped the wheel tighter, ready to swerve away if need be.

Benezia looked out the front window of the small shuttle she procured to see a hatch on the side of the largest ship there open. She also tensed, waiting for a fighter ship to fly out, or a railgun to present itself... But nothing happened. The large opening in the ship just sat there quiet, waiting... _inviting_.

"That room is plenty bing enough for this shuttle to fit into." Benezia hedged.

Tela instantly caught on. "No, no, no! Nonononono! NO! I am not going in there!"

Benezia put a comforting hand on the younger asari's shoulder. "I know you want to become a Specter Tela, and brokering peace with a new race is exactly what you need." Tela worried her lip, looking indecisive. "I'll even write you a recommendation myself." A Matriarch as important as herself recommending an asari was basically a guarantee that she would get into the program, and they both knew it.

"Fine!" Tela huffed in frustration and pressed the shuttle forward.

The small craft expertly maneuvered into the offered opening and set down on the metal floor. Apparently they had artificial gravity technology, which was good. Though how they managed that while supposedly not possessing a Mass Effect core, Benezia had no idea. Though they could not see it from the front window of the shuttle, it was obvious when the hanger door closed as air began to pump into the room.

"Looks like its breathable." A still tense Tela said after a few seconds, looking at the read out on the consoles. "But they could still vent the room at any moment."

"I don't think they'll do that." Benezia gave a small smile as she saw doors open around the hanger and bipedal creatures stared moving in. It did not appear that any were wearing pressurized suits to survive a sudden venting. "Looks like this is my chance." Not wanting to hear the rebuke Tela would not doubt give, Benezia pressed the button on the wall to open the shuttle door. Stepping out she got her first unobscured view of this new race, and there were a lot of them to look at.

She counted maybe fifty of them in the room, all of them on a catwalk the bordered the top of the room. In any other similar situation, Benezia would not have been too worried as she saw no guns on them and had faith in her biotic abilities, but if these were the species that utterly destroyed the turians...

Just as she was about to try communicating, two of the aliens started to make their way down a stairway. By the time Tela was out of the shuttle and standing behind her, the two creatures were standing side-by-side at a reasonable speaking distance.

"What do we do now Mistress?" A nervous Tela asked behind her, causing the darker skinned alien to shift its gaze to her while the lighter skinned, shorter one kept up the staring contest with Benezia. "We cannot speak their language." Benezia had no answer, every other time they had encountered a new species they had linked to their computers to understand their language and upload it to the translators built into Omni-tools. The only exception to date were the krogan, who had no technology to speak of. But these aliens were not like the krogan, they had managed both space travel and artificial gravity on their own, so they must have at least moderately advanced computers somewhere. The problem was to getting to them without being able to communicate.

Instead of answering, Benezia decided to observe these strange new creatures as they no doubt were doing to her.

The two standing in front of her were so different from one another that she almost assumed they were two completely different species. But upon looking around the room, she saw various combinations of their qualities and hypothesized that their species just had an astoundingly large amount of diversity.

They were both slightly taller than the average turian but below that of a krogan. They were bipedal with forward-facing knees and five fingers on each hand. The one on the left had an incredibly similar body shape to an asari while the one on the right did not. If they were anything like the quarians, that meant the taller one was male and the shorter one female. They also shared a single pair of eyes, tribal markings over their exposed skin like turians and asari do, and had _hair_. Obviously they were mammals, as well as the first intelligent species in the known galaxy that grew hair. Some rumored that the quarians had hair beneath their suits (which Benezia knew was false) and others said the same about the volus (and even she did not know if that was true).

The one on the left - the male - had a dark tone skin. His hair was cut very short, almost making it look like he had none to begin with. The black lines of his tribal tattoo stood out on his skin, only seen on his neck, head, and hands as the rest was covered by clothing. As far as Benezia could tell, their eyes followed a pattern of white on the outside, followed by another color, then a black pupil - another similarity to the asari. The middle ring of the tall male's eyes were a muddy brown.

The one on the right - the female - was a little more than an inch shorter than her companion, but still taller than almost everyone Benezia had ever met, sans any krogan. She had bright red hair growing out of the top her head that stopped just above her chin and bright green eyes. She showed more skin than the male in that the sleeves of her top stopped halfway to her elbow. With the move milk-like skin exposed, Benezia could see her black markings swirling around her arms in many intricate patterns. Benezia blinked though when she noticed a significant difference between to two aliens - the female of the two had a tail. Maybe it was a difference between between the sexes?

Unknown to the two asari - with one analyzing the new race and the other fidgeting nervously under all the silent gazes - Rolo had accessed their shuttle's computer. It was not very difficult for the AI to do so, as the shuttle had a communication receiver so that it could connect with other ships and such - though it was an unheard of concept for humans. In the time it took for Benezia to assess the two humans, Rolo had easily wirelessly hacked into the shuttle from Hannah, accessed its small computer bank it possessed, and downloaded everything it could to Hannah's Beta Nerves.

Among the information Rolo gathered was a basic understanding of some language, and upon hearing the scared looking, younger blue alien speak he knew it was the language they spoke. It was only a basic understanding though, and had many holes in the translation. But with Rolo connected to Skynet and by extension ADAM - the AI who was able to work out communicating with freaking _thresher maws_ - they were able to fill in the blanks within the minute.

Matriarch Benezia and Tela actually jumped when the female of the two suddenly spoke up.

"You are not turian."

It was a simple statement, one that the younger asari actually felt insulted by the idea that they would ever confuse her with one of those damn birds. But neither of the two blue biotics could answer right away over the fact that she had spoken in asari. Granted the accent was so bad it was almost unintelligible and she stressed the wrong syllables, but the words themselves were perfect. For a brief second, Benezia entertained the idea that their natural language was nearly identical to her own, but brushed it aside as foolish.

"No." Benezia was actually very pleased that she did not stutter. "We are asari." Though that added another question to the growing list, how did they even know the turians were called turians? They could have tortured it out of a captive possibly, but how would they have understood what it said? And wouldn't the captive have mentioned asari or other races at some point? "What may I call you?" She asked politely.

"As a species we are called humans." The 'human' female said. It was an easy enough name to remember. "Personally, I am Commissioner Hannah Shepard." Little bit more challenging, but still memorized by the Matriarch easily enough. "This is Captain David Anderson." She tilted her head to the dark skinned human next to her, who was looking at Benezia with an expression that - if humans were similar to asari in that was as well - was thoughtful. "We are on his ship, SSV _Kametachi_." She gave the asari a small nod. "What are your names."

"I am Matriarch Benezia and this is Tela Vasir." She introduced the two as Tela still looked nervously around the room and did not seem like she wanted to talk.

"And what do you want with us, Matriach?" The dark-skinned Captain suddenly spoke up. Benezia hid her surprise well. How did he know her native tongue as well? While the man looked and sounded intimidating, his tone - even in a language not his own - was strict as any captain's should be.

"I wish to apologize on behalf of the Turian Hierarchy." Most of the humans around the room tensed, causing Tela to shift a hand to her gun. Only Benezia and Anderson remained calm.

"They are you allies then?" The Captain asked, and Benezia noted that his accent and stresses were getting better. Weird.

Benezia nodded. "We are." The humans around the room began to shift low into crouches and the one called Shepard in particular slowly pull on a pair of fingerless gloves, followed by grabbing the hilts of two knives on her belt. _They still use knives even after they achieve space travel?_ Very weird indeed. It was while Shepard was shifting that Benezia noted the ring of dark red fur around her collar that she had assumed was part of her clothes was not. She actually had hair - or fur rather - growing out the base of her neck. She supposed she should have seen that coming as it matched the color of her tail fur exactly. A quick glance around the room revealed that some of the humans had tails and others patches of fur, but not all of them were female like she suspected they would be. Very, very weird.

Deciding it would be best to defuse the situation as soon as possible, Benezia pushed her confused thoughts away and continued to speak. "Both the asari and turians are part of the council of species that has ruled this galaxy for over two and a half millennia." She saw the surprise blossom on their faces. "Currently there are ten species that are ruled by the council, though three of them have been separated for some time now." No one was really certain if the batarians, quarians, or krogans would ever be allowed back and only time would tell. "One of the laws that has been in place by the council for almost two thousand years states that no new Mass Relays can be activated. This is because the opening of one Relay long ago led to a three hundred year long bloody war that billions perished in." From the resigned scowl on the Captain's face, she knew he understood. "The turians probably acted out of fear at seeing you attempting to activate the Relay and opened fire. Whatever reason the Admiral of the fleet had for attacking the planet, I cannot say as his ship did not survive the battle." Shepard had an odd reaction and gave what looked like an amused yet sad smile.

"I see." Anderson said, giving a thoughtful frown.

Benezia let that sink in, relieved to note that Shepard had released her knives - though she knew she could easily fight her off had she drawn them. "I am also here to offer you to join. The Council that is." Seeing their surprised looks, she explained. "It is customary to offer the chance to any new species, even if they had a... rough start with one of the Council species."

"And what do the turians say about this?" Anderson asked, his face giving nothing away to whether he wanted peace or the chance to kill all of the avian species.

"They came to an understanding that it was they who instigated the attack... eventually." Behind her, Tela snorted.

"A little advice." The younger asari spoke up, apparently no longer as nervous as she was before. "The turians are the main military branch. They're still unhappy that you guys beat them back and they'll stay that way for a while." Benezia scowled at her tone. It was no secret that Tela held no love for turians.

A snort very similar to Tela's came from Shepard. "And we'll hate them for murdering a bunch of civilians for as long as we remember. And unfortunately for them, humans have long memories."

Both Benezia and Anderson ignored their accomplices who were now smirking at one another in mutual amusement. "If you could show us the location of where to meet this Council, we can move out." Anderson said, causing Benezia to give a small frown for two reasons. The first was that she was hoping to take her shuttle to the Citadel. If humans did not posses Mass Effect technology it would take _forever_ to get to the nearest active Relay.

"Don't you need to contact your superiors first?" And that was the second reason. The Council would need to speak with the main government, not a random Captain and his crew. For them to want to leave immediately confused Benezia.

Anderson just gave a small smile at the question while Shepard smirked. Unknowingly, Benezia had just confirmed the suspicions of all the members of the Systems Alliance who were watching through the Captain's eyes that these aliens did not posses anything quite like Skynet. "They're already informed and have agreed to listen to the Council." Was Hannah's mysterious reply. No use in telling possible enemies about what humans could do if it could be avoided. Once they could be trusted more, they could know. But until then, she would keep her knives and sword on her person at all times.

Benezia's frown deepened. Fine, if they wanted to play like then so be it. Besides, as soon as they found where the Citadel was they would probably admit it was too far away for them and agree to board her shuttle. "Very well, do you have a navigation room?" Anderson nodded and walked away, followed by Shepard. Benezia gave a nod to Tela as the younger asari closed the shuttle door and they both followed the humans.

Walking through the alien ship was an interesting experience. Despite having no expertise with designing starships, Benezia could easily tell that no, they did not posses Mass Effect technology. She had originally thought that they might if they found some renovating way to deal with the heat exhaust on such a large ship. But walking through said ship she found it lacked many things every other ship she had ever been on had. The hallways were too big and awkwardly supported that they would collapse if forced through FTL travel. The circuits of electricity were distributed so incredibly wrong that they could not all lead to one source of power. Most meaningful though, was that there was no telltale hum of an Element Zero core.

After walking up four sets of stairs and down a long corridor, they reached what was definitely the navigation room, if the large hologram of the galaxy was anything to go by. Benezia let out a relieved sigh. They had holograms, at least they were not _too_ technologically backwards.

At a gesture from the Captain, she moved up to the hologram and jabbed at the exact area of the Citadel, pleased that the projection sensed her action and lit up the area with a dot. Anderson came up beside and gave the dot a thoughtful look. "The Serpent Nebula." He said to himself. Just when Benezia was certain he was going to ask for a ride in her shuttle that _did_ have a Mass Effect core, albeit a small one, he surprised her by nodding. "Very well, it will be done."

The room that was a moment ago was empty save for the two humans and two asari burst into action. Almost before Benezia knew what was going on, she was surrounded by dozens of humans moving to sit in the chairs around the edge of the room she now realized was actually the bridge.

Anderson and Shepard moved away from the hologram towards the far side of the room. It took Benezia a few seconds to regain from her surprise and follow. It took Tela even longer. Catching up the the Captain and Commissioner, she was about to go into a rant - _no_, not a rant. Matriarchs don't rant. She was going to _debate_ - to try and convince them to just take her shuttle because it would take far to long for this ship to make the journey when she was stopped by the sight of the next room. It was obviously the cockpit, and the human in the only chair was obviously the pilot. What surprised her was the controls the pilot was using.

The whole dashboard was a metal plate that made a U around the pilot's chair had. It had no levers, no buttons, not even a wheel! There was a small circle off to the side built into the 'control panel' that looked to be a hologram projector but it was currently out of use. The rest of the metal was covered in a web of intricate black lines that looked like they were painted on. Even more surprising was that the pilot's hands were dancing over the markings, jabbing, swiping, and circling them in seemingly random patterns.

Tela gasped when she entered the room. "By the Goddess!"

The pilot said something in a bizarre language that Benezia's translator could not make heads or tails of. She realized with a start that he was speaking in his native tongue. Anderson said something in response - just as indiscernible - and nodded. The pilot put his hand to one particular array of lines, each of his five fingers touching an individual circle. With careful slowness, he moved his hand forward, dragging his fingers along five parallel lines that originated in a circles. Benezia had to grab onto the doorway she was still standing in as the ship gave a sudden lurch. By the time Benezia managed to look up again, she could only gape as all the shining dots of stars outside the large front window seemed to be pulled and stretched like taffy before the ship shot forward as if fired from a giant slingshot. Unlike what it would feel like if that simile actually happened, there was no great influx of inertia. Benezia stayed rooted in one spot as she viewed the ship shooting forward like she had only seen done by a Mass Relay, and there definitely was not one of those nearby - well at least not a working one.

"Were have entered Hyperspace. It will take about four and a half hours to get to the Serpent Nebula." Anderson said next to her. He actually looked nervous for Benezia, despite being of different species and knowing each other for less than an hour. "Are you okay?"

"Y-Yeah, I'll be fine." She managed to say as she stood up straight, and quickly looking away from the streaks of light out side the window as they were making her dizzy. "What was that term you used?"

"Hyperspace?" She nodded and the Captain scowled. "From what we could gleam from the computers of your shuttle, you don't have a similar word in your language. And based on your reaction I'm going to guess this not is how you planned to travel to the Council?"

"No." She shook her head. "I have only used Mass Effect technologies for long distance travel."

"You mean all your ships are powered by Element Zero?" The pilot asked, surprisingly articulate with the asari language. He sounded both disbelieving and a little afraid. "Don't they ever, you know, _explode_." The asari was unsure if she should be worried that he was not looking at what he was doing as he swiveled in his chair to stare at her.

"Well, sometimes, yes." Benezia confirmed, failing to hide her confusion. They knew about Mass Effect technology and Element Zero?

"Do you not use Element Zero to power your ships?" Tela asked, ripping her eyes away from the hypnotizing view outside the window.

The pilot shook his head. "Nope, we use good old Chakra and Fuinjutsu." To prove whatever it was he just said, he slapped the painted on lines that obviously controlled the ship. For a second Benezia was afraid that he just sent the starship into a deadly tailspin or something similar, but when nothing happened she calmed down.

"Humans had a pretty nasty experience with a Mass Effect core long ago." Shepard explained, trying to ease the asari's confusion. "When we stumbled upon the plans on how to make our own, no one wanted to build it, much less ride it. So we forgot about it and worked out our own way of flying faster than the speed of light."

"I... see." And she did. Kind of. But now Benezia wondered how they could have a problem with a Mass Effect core before they knew how to build them.

"Seeing as we have time to spare, why don't you give our guests a tour Commissioner." Anderson asked Shepard, who in return gave him a 'why should I?' look. The older human just gave an annoyed look that she managed to survive for three second.

"Fine." Shepard sighed before moving to walk out the room. "Follow me ladies... you are ladies right?" She gave a cautious look at Benezia and Tela, obviously concerned she had just unknowingly insulted them.

Tela just shrugged. "Sure, might as well be." At seeing the humans' collective confused look, Benezia spoke up instead.

"All asari are of mono gender, but we can give birth to children like the females of other species. Our physiques also hold similarities to the females of another race called the quarians so it is generally accepted that we are female even if is not biologically true."

Shepard blinked and visibly restrained herself from asking how sex was supposed to work for them, much to the amusement of the asari present. While Shepard was struggling with herself, the Matriarch remembered something else important. "Captain, I need to ask something of you." Anderson nodded for her to continue. With a flick of her wrist, orange flared around her left forearm and Benezia was once again surrounded by tense, crouching humans. "This is a tool used by almost every citizen of the council species." She tried to defuse the situation.

"Is that an Omni-tool?" Benezia nodded, assuming they got the word from her shuttles databanks but did not know what it meant. Shepard gave it a curious look. "I've always wondered what those would look like."

Ignoring the odd comment, Benezia brought up the program that had not been used since the krogans had been uplifted. "This is used to program our translators that let us talk with so many species easily. It will take awhile but as the images come up you have to say what they are in your language and then type them in. Though we'll save that for later since we have to know your alphabet first, unless you use a individual character for each word." She held her 'tool for the Captain to see. The first picture was that of a star, easy enough.

Captain scowled, apparently he did not like the idea of going through all of this but knew he had to do it. _I mean, it wasn't like every human knew how to speak asari already right?_

Instead of speaking however, the Captain raised his own hand. There was a flash from his fingertips and a ball of light shot from them and into the offered Omni-tool so fast Benezia would have missed it had she not been looking directly at it. Over the next few seconds, the images flashed over Benezia's 'tool far to fast to comprehend. When the screen showing that the program had ended appeared, it was quickly followed by the one showing it being downloaded to her translator. When that finished, the orb of light shot back out of her arm computer and into Anderson's waiting fingers.

"Will that suffice, Matriarch?" The Captain said in what - to her - sounded like perfect asari, but with his lips moving much differently it showed that he was still speaking his native language. A playful smirk was at his lips, probably from the face she was making. "He also took the liberty of downloading your translations for the other Council species, I hope you don't mind. Don't worry, he stayed away from anything personal."

Benezia stared at her now idle Omni-tool. That process was infamous for taking upwards of six hours. Granted her original plan was to do something similar in linking their computers, but with the way it was just done she needed some time to think. "Yes, that's fine." She did not even fully register that Anderson said 'he' like it was a different person who completed the program.

She barely paid attention as Shepard took her and Tela away from the bridge to show them around the ship. These humans were very, very, _very_ weird.

**'~,_,~'**

David Anderson watched as the Commissioner and two aliens left. The orb of light flew from his hand again, this time hitting the hologram projector next to the pilot on the SCI. It immediately lit up to show an AI avatar that looked like an aged old man. "Are you sure that was a smart move, David?" The super computer asked. "The asari language was posted on Skynet before we went into Hyperspace. We could have easily used their language when we want to be understood and our own when we did not."

"Consider it a sign of trust." Anderson replied, looking out the window as the stars stretched by.

"You just didn't want to go through that translation program, did you?"

The human smirked. "Maybe."

**'~,_,~'**

These humans had found a way to create Mass Effect technology, but did not use it. Obviously they had something else that worked, and that was what worried Benezia. Even after twenty-five hundred years after achieving it, the asari could not think of anything to work even remotely as good as Mass Relays. Even after the salarians - who were widely seen as the best scientists - joined the Council, they could not design of anything better. Even after the quarians - indisputably the best engineers - joined, something better could not be created. Granted, they never had a reason to try and find something better, but still.

What other great differences did these humans have?

"And this is the mess hall." Shepard continued talking, even though only the younger asari was paying attention. "And over there-"

"Wait." Tela's interruption was sudden enough that it drew Benezia out of her thoughts. Shepard scowled at being stopped, but let the asari speak anyway. "What's that sound?"

The two others blinked and tried to focus on the sound. "It sounds like... cheering?" Benezia admitted.

"Oh, that." Shepard gave a wide smile that frightened the two aliens a little. "That was going to be the last thing on our tour, but since you asked..." The hanyo walked to a nearby door. With a practiced ease, she lifted her hand and swiped her three middle fingers down the three black lines that looked like they were painted on the wall next to it. Obediently, the door slid open and the dull sound of cheering that Tela heard up instantly picked up to a giant roar that momentarily deafened the asari. Shepard on the other hand, raised her arms above her head and gave a cheer of her own to the ceiling. "Come on!" She shouted over the roar of a crowd, waving to the visitors. Before they could retort, she grabbed an arm of each and physically dragged them into the door - and she was _strong_!

The three were immediately lost in a crowd of yelling people. As all the humans were at least a head taller than the asari, they could not see what everyone was cheering at. Shepard had to push the two aliens forward until they broke through the crowd and hit a railing. It turned out it was a room almost identical to the hanger their shuttle was currently in. The catwalk that was suspended around the border of the metal room was packed with humans of all shapes and sizes. In the center of the room on the ground below the catwalk, two bloodied and sweaty humans were battling it out to the cheering of the crowd.

It did not take Benezia very long to figure out what this room was used for, and when she did she wanted to curse. Humans were not just a weird race with frightening new technology, they were a weird race with frightening new technology and a love for brutal fighting! And she had hoped that the krogan were the only ones like that.

To her utter embarrassment, it did not take long for Tela to figure it out as well and begin cheering right along with their distracted tour guide.

The fight ended within a few minutes as one of the humans curbed stomped the other into the metal floor with enough force that Benezia worried they were trying to kill each other like barbarians. Thankfully, the downed man just got back up with a smile, rubbing his chin and forfeiting. The crowd roared one last time before things quieted down to a low talking level. The victor of the match took a seat on the floor down in the arena while the loser walked away.

"What are they waiting for?" Tela asked, her voice hoarse from the shouting.

"For someone else to accept a fight with that guy." Shepard jerked her head to the victor. "Come on, that's all I wanted to show you, let's go."

Benezia let out a relieved sigh as Shepard began to turn away. She would be happy to never see an arena like this ever again. "What do you have to do to accept the fight?" Tela asked, not moving as she looked at the human in the arena with a thoughtful expression.

"Tela..." Benezia said in a warning tone.

Shepard, however, gave a wide smile. "Just jump down there and hope he accepts the challenge."

Tela nodded. "Is there anything one should know before jumping in?"

By now, the Commissioner had moved back and clasped a hand on the younger of the two asari's shoulder. "It starts as a fist-fighting match but as soon as anything is used by one person, the other is allowed to use their equivalent. You pull out a weapon - he's allowed to use a similar weapon and vise versa. Understand?" Tela nodded. "Then good luck."

"Tela-" Benezia was stopped from trying to dissuade her again when the younger asari put a foot on the catwalk's railing and jumped over, landing in the crouch on the arena floor with the grace asari were known for. "Goddess save me." Benezia said as she pinched the bridge of her nose.

::FIGHT ON!:: Hannah sent the text around to everyone in the room. Instantly, all attention was drawn back to the arena and the winner of the last fight looked up.

There was a pause as the two contestants stared at each other and the crowd was silent. The human looked at the volunteer with a guarded expression as she began to fidget under the many silent gazes. It was obvious to every human in the room that the man was a bit scared at the idea of fighting an unknown - even if just in a spar. No human liked fighting something they did not understand.

After what seemed like forever for the asari, the human stood up and nodded with a wide smile. As if on command, the crowd gave a roar of approval loud enough to cause Tela and Benezia to jump. The human slid into a crouched position - what seems to be the stance of choice for humans - and Tela stood tall.

Faster than Tela thought possible for someone of the man's size, he was rushing for her with his arm held out to clothesline her neck. The asari managed to roll to the side to avoid it along with the kick that followed up. Just as she came out of the roll, a hand clasped around her arm and violently threw her away, nearly dislocating her shoulder in the process.

The asari hit the ground some distance away, disorienting. Humans apparently had more natural strength than she thought they would. As soon as she managed to regain her bearings, she saw the human was now above her about to execute a curb stomp like the one that ended his previous match. Tela did not think, just acted.

Blue flames licked her hands as she caught the man above her in a dark aura. With a swing of her arm, she sent the man sailing across the room, his momentum only stopping when he hit the metal wall.

Time froze for Tela as she stared wide-eyed at Benezia's similar expression from across the room. Revealing biotics while surrounded by dozens of adrenaline high, mostly unknown aliens was not the ideal situation. If they thought it was witchcraft or something else that would cause bad reactions, and it could get messy. She needed to-

"WHHOOOOOOO!" The roar of the crowd came back, shortly followed by the human fighter getting up while rubbing the back of his head.

"I've gone five rounds already." The man shouted to her while shaking his head. "I don't have it in me to fight a biotic. You win." The crowd cheered as the man went to the stairs and up to the catwalk.

Tela could only blink stupidly. So they knew about biotics already? That was good. But what really annoyed her was that the fight had been so short and one-sided that it was almost pathetic. Just as the crowd began to fall back into a wave of dull chatter, it lapsed into silence as someone else jumped into the arena.

The asari did a double take when she saw Hannah standing there with a smile. "The last time I fought a biotic, it was far to serious for my taste. What do you say?" There was a dense silence and Tela realized they were waiting for her response. She jerked her head in a nod as blue fire rose from her skin.

The crowd cheered.

Benezia facepalmed.

Trying to get the preemptive strike this time, Tela shot her hand out. Hannah stepped to the side just as a wave of blue shot past her. Hannah grinned as the black lines that covered her skin - which both asari thought were simple tribal markings - began to glow white and the crowd cheered louder. Before either asari could try and figure out what was happening, Hannah crouched and launched herself at Tela.

The previous fighter was fast, yes, but still within Tela's abilities to fight. Hannah, with whatever those marks were doing to her, was moving so fast she could barely be seen!

Tela managed to get up a rushed biotic barrier, but the human's punch met it before it could fully form and shattered it. The asari could barely lean back in time as the following uppercut tore past where her chin was moments before. She could see the air ripple around the arm as it blurred past!

In a desperate move, she shot another biotic blast at the human. It missed horribly, but Hannah had jumped away and broke off her assault to avoid it. Getting a little reprieve, Tela quickly cupped her hands and formed a ball of dark energy with the only purpose of collapsing in onto itself. She threw it at the human with a flick of her wrist. The spinning, pseudo-black hole known as a _singularity_ sailed at its target in a way that Hannah would not be able to dodge like she had the previous biotic attacks. At least, that's what Tela thought.

The human jumped high into the air and Tela was the with its angle and velocity - a _really_ high velocity - she would fall back down well within the range of the miniature black hole. Instead, once Hannah reached the ceiling of the room she stopped... Just, _stopped_.

Tela gaped as the human female stayed in a crouched position, upside down, and attached to the ceiling by her hands and feet. Hannah smirked at the reaction, and that combined with her tail waving slowly, she looked very much like a cat that ate the canary to the humans cheering around the arena.

Pushing her surprise and small amount of fear to the back of her mind where it could studied later, Tela raised both hands. A series of biotic pulses shot at Hannah. In response, the human began flipping around the ceiling. She would lift her hands and bend away, then plant them and move her feet. She moved around and dodged the dark energy like some kind of demented slinky.

Finally, Hannah jumped from the ceiling with the speed Tela was beginning to associate with the glow of her skin marks. The asari barely managed to roll away as the glowing mass of flesh and fur blew past her. As they both landed on their feet, Tela reached out with a hand wreathing in blue. Hannah dodged again and the asari jerked her other arm forward while her target was midair. But Hannah's tail proved to be more than just for show as it swung to the side and managed to move the rest of her body out of the way of the biotic pulse. She was unable to dodge the third attack though.

Instead of pushing her away again, Tela yanked her hand back to drag the human towards her, hoping it would be disorienting enough to get a hit in. Halfway through being pulled to the asari, Hannah got her feet under her and slammed them down on the metal, her momentum abruptly stopping.

The aura of biotics continued to flare around Hannah as she stuck to the ground like a statue, unable to be moved in the game of tug of war. With a grunt, Tela brought her other hand up to double the force, but it still did no good. The metal beneath Hannah gave a groan as it began to bend under the strain. The human suddenly smiled again and Tela got a sinking feeling in her stomach.

Hannah released the Chakra grip that her feet held.

As if fired like a bullet, Hannah shot at the asari who seemed to realize what would happen a second before Hannah did it and rolled to the side. Just as the human flew by, her foot shot out and struck the asari in her abdomen.

Both women went flying in different directions, slamming into metal walls to the sound of the cheering crowd.

**'~,_,~'**

Tela regained consciousness to the stern frown of Matriarch Benezia.

Not the most pleasant way she's ever woken up, that's for certain. _I feel sorry for any child she ever has._

Tela was lying on a bench in what looked to be a locker room. A few other humans moved around but they did not seem to take notice of the asari.

"I hope that's the last time you embarrass the asari race." The woman said. You could practically hear the scowl in her voice.

"Embarrass?" Tela looked over to see Hannah sitting nearby. Even after flying into a metal wall at who-knows-how-many-times-faster than what knocked the asari out, the redhead looked perfectly fine. "I'll have you know her little stunt probably got her a lot of respect for your people."

"What?" Benezia asked, greatly befuddled.

"Power is respected." All occupants of the room shivered at the voice and most stared at its owner for some time before eventually getting back to what they were doing, the rest just continued to stare. The owner of the voice was a male human with bright yellow hair. But he looked different from the rest of the humans Tela had seen so far. Besides lack of tribal markings - that somehow glowed, she really needed to figure that one out - his features were slightly different. Not enough for him to be a different species, but like he had come from a group of humans that had grown up on a separate land from the rest of them. He probably had a different ethnicity. "Even before I was born, humans have always loved to fight." _And what the heck is up with his voice?_ "The only condolence is that we stopped going into pointless wars long ago. And you!" He suddenly turned to Hannah with an annoyed look. "I take my eyes off of you for five minutes and what do you do? You go and break your collar bone!"

Hannah had the decency to look sheepish. "Sorry."

"I broke your collar bone?" Tela yelped, only to wince as she tried to sit up to quickly. Her stomach area was definitely bruised, and badly so.

"Don't worry it already healed." Hannah waved her concern off, but frowned at the asari. "But you've been out for an hour and your stomach still hasn't healed. Maybe I kicked you too hard."

Tela gave her a confused look. "Why? It's normal that it would take that long." The bruise probably would not fade for another day or so.

"Oh." Hannah and the male human shared a look. "Well then, you heal much slower than humans do." The redhead got a far away look in her eye, which Benezia noted was matched by every other human in the room sans the yellow-haired man with the odd looks and voice. No sooner had the distant expressions come then they disappeared. Instantly Hannah was on her feet as most of the other humans stopped what they were doing and left the room in a hurry. "Looks like we're coming out of Hyperspace in a few minutes. The Captain wants us on the bridge." Not waiting for the asari, she left as well, leaving the two aliens and the man alone.

"Come on." The yellow-haired man said as he put an arm around Tela's shoulder's and lifted her to her feet. Though because of the height difference, she ended up with him just holding her by the arm in a firm grip. "Let's get you ladies upstairs."

After silently considering the man for a minute, she decided it would be a good idea to introduce herself. "I'm Tela Vasir." The younger asari said to the human leading her through the metal maze of halls of the ship, Benezia silently trailing behind.

"Nice to you." His voice still made her body do odd things. When he did not continue, she got annoyed.

"And you are..." She hedged. He looked at her sharply, surprised, before giving a light laugh.

"Just my luck." He laughed lightly, causing her injured stomach to squirm. "The first time someone asked my name in years and I don't have enough time to do my introduction dance. I'm Naruto Uzumaki."

"What do you mean no one has asked your name in years?" Tela asked. She carefully ignored the mention of an 'introduction dance'.

The now identified Naruto smiled at her. "Everyone knows who I am." Tela snorted in disbelief. "I'm serious." He said with a smile. "Parents have told their children stories about me for thousands of generations."

"Right, and I'm the mother of Athame." Tela retorted.

"Who?"

"Never mind." She did _not_ want to lecture someone on religion. She noticed a bunch humans scurrying around. "Everyone seems to be in a hurry." She noted, not expecting much of a response other than agreement.

"It's difficult for humans to be in Hyperspace. You should see them after they've stayed in it for days or weeks. People look so run down it's like they're dead on their feet. That's one of the reasons they were throwing those fights you stumbled upon - people are stressed out and need a way to get rid of it."

Tela thought back to the humans she had met and talked to, Hannah in particular. They did seem a little tense after they had entered Hyperspace. "Why is it hard for them?"

Naruto hummed. "I wonder if I should tell you?" He asked aloud to himself. "It wouldn't be a problem if you become allies, but if you're enemies..." He trailed off and Tela got a lump in her throat. "Actually there aren't many things you could do against us just from knowing about Skynet, and if you ever find a way to join without us wanting you to ADAM and Eve would just kick you out, rather painfully probably."

"Skynet? ADAM? Eve? What are you talking about?" Tela was getting more questions than answers.

Naruto thought for a few more seconds - ignoring the asari in the process - before nodding to himself. "Might as well tell you." He looked over his shoulder at Benezia who had remained silent since they left for the bridge. "You're an important person to this Council we're going to see, right?" At her hesitant nod, he continued. "Then can you spread what I'm going to tell you around? I don't want to have to say it twice."

The Matriarch hesitated at the odd request, but agreed soon enough.

Naruto hummed again as he turned back to look forward. "Well you see, humans are born with this seal on them - called an Izanami Seal. As they grow, it will spread over their body. When it is complete, usually somewhere in the teenage years, it works with a bunch of other stuff in their bodies and they gain access to Skynet. Skynet is... Well people joke that its like a hive mind, but that's actually pretty accurate." The two asari tensed, stories of the rachni and their hive mind were still popular. "With it a person can instantly contact any other human and access a massive bank of information in ADAM with a thought, no matter the distance between them."

_No matter the distance?_ The asari shared a wide-eyed look.

"As you first talked with Hannah and the Captain, every other human that wanted to was able to watch the conversation though their eyes. David actually went over everything you said with all the leaders of humanity before responding to anything. At the same time, everything they learned from your language was uploaded to Skynet and given to ADAM. I think David and Hannah ordered everyone on the ship to learn the language so they could communicate - didn't do much good since you did that translator thing of yours, though. Probably right after David got the program, he sent it out to every human on the ship so that they could understand the language of any other species of this Council we run into."

By now, Tela had lost the ability to use her legs and Naruto was literally dragging her through the hallways, not that he seemed to notice. Benezia had somehow managed to keep walking, but her jaw was left far behind. Come to think of it, just minutes ago all the humans in the locker room had gained faraway looks before suddenly rushing to work. That was probably this Skynet in action.

"And that leads to why humans have it hard in Hyperspace." Naruto finally got around to answering the original question. "Everyone on this ship had been able to access Skynet for the large majority of their lives. The problem is that, while in Hyperspace they can't connect to anyone sans the people on the same ship. To suddenly be cut off is torture to them."

The timing was almost perfect as they came to the bridge as soon as he finished and Naruto set the now silent asari in a spare chair.

"Exiting Hyperspace in five!" The pilot called from his chair, placing his fingers back over the five parallel lines - the Hyperspace control seal. He started to drag his fingers down the black lines until the streaks of light outside the window returned to being normal stars. I the distance, Benezia could see the Citadel. In perfect unison, every human except for Naruto gave a relieved sigh as they were reconnected to Skynet.

"Tela, I've come to two conclusions." Benezia said in a whisper as humans began to move around again.

"What are they?" It seemed she was still in shock, though it had lessened greatly already.

"I know how the turians lost and I will do anything to get the humans to be part of the Council."

"What? Why?"

"Imagine it." Benezia told the younger asari. "In a battle between three turian ships and an army of people like Hannah working together perfectly through this 'Skynet' and utilizing unknown technology that can do who-knows-what. Who do you think will win?" Tela thought about it, and it did not take long to do so before she shivered.

"A-And the second conclusion? Why do you want them to join the Council so much?"

Benezia gave her a meaningful look. "Take everything I just said and imagine them as _your_ enemy."

* * *

**End!**

**And the chapter that I cannot help but consider filler is over... for now.**

**Explanation time!**

**The ship controls: I figured that being able to control machines and vehicles was too far, so they actually have to use manual controls for them. Very strange and unrealistic controls, yes, but controls nonetheless.**

**Hannah's comment about Omni-Tools: _"I always wondered what those would look like."_ Humans know all about Prothean technology, including Omni-Tools. They just don't use any of it besides Medigel.**

**Random fight scene: Because I said so.**

**Until next time,  
- - _Sorcerer of the East_**


	4. A Meeting to Decide Fate

**Hey yah!**

**I met my self-assigned post date again! I feel so special!**

**And people are still reviewing! That's even better! So, to the 42 people who gave feedback since the last update, you have my thanks. I feel bad that I reward your kindness with what I still feel is a filler chapter, but I have to get it out of the way. Luckily (or maybe ****unluckily depending on how you look at it) this is a relatively short chapter.**

**This time I'ma gonna aim for Thursday for the next chapter. That should be the last pre-Mass Effect chapter, then chapter 6 begins the actual story.**

**Posted: 1/6/2013  
Word Count: 6,871 (hey, it's short for me)  
Brief Summary: Council meeting.**

* * *

**Chapter 4**

**A Meeting to Decide Fate**

* * *

_As soon as the SSV _Kametachi_ exited Hyperspace, Skynet was lit up like a wildfire. The 'translator' that Captain Anderson had gotten from the aliens had spread around quickly. Many people were so fascinated by the many languages in it that they decided to learn them._

_To count, seventeen vids - all from different angles - of the fight between Hannah and Tela were posted._

_Also to count, there were four hundred and two attempts to edit the vids into an exotic adult film featuring Tela and Hannah. All of them failed for various reasons, though for most it was because Eve got wind of it. _

_Within the time it took for Captain Anderson and his crew to travel to the Citadel, every Kage of the Systems Alliance had converged and decided that it would be the Captain himself who would speak on humanities' behalf - with the leaders watching in to decide what to do of course._

**'~,_,~'**

**Codex Update**

Leaf Law: A rather badly named piece of legislation. The Leaf Law is actually a series of 138 laws added over time. They represent the backbone of the human judicial system. The constitution if you will. Should anyone break any of the laws, they can be certain they will not stay out of jail long. With the attack on Shanxi, it marks the first time ever in history that one of the Leaf Laws was rebuked. Law #67, created in 1672 AU disbanded all standing militaries. Through the attack by the turians, the Systems Alliance believed it would be for the best if the law was removed, at least temporarily. Many hope for the day when it can be put back in place, marking the new beginning of the peaceful time that Naruto Uzumaki was famous for achieving.

**'~,_,~'**

To Hannah, this 'Citadel' as Matriarch Benezia called it seemed to be a Star City. An oddly shaped one yes, but a Star City nonetheless. After taking one glance at it through the ship window, she ignored it in favor of calling up her friends and family to tell them she was okay.

Benezia stood beside the Captain as they neared the home base of the Galactic Council. "They should contact you soon. You would do well to answer these ones." The Matriarch said, still slightly bitter that they never opened communications with her shuttle and forced her to come inside their ship - not that she regreted it now.

The Captain looked at her funny and the pilot gave a bad stage whisper of to Tela. "What is she talking about?"

Tela in turn, looked at the pilot, annoyed. "We tried to call in this ship when first we came near her on every frequency we could. Are you trying to get out of being rude by saying you didn't recieve it?" It was obviously a rhetorical question, but the pilot answered anyway.

"I didn't get anything. Did you, Captain?" Anderson shook his head in answer, making all four occupants of the pilot room gain confused expressions.

A loud laugh drew their attention making them shiver at the same time. Only one person could do that with his voice. "You made a mistake then." Naruto said with a smile as he leaned inside of the doorframe. "You did that assuming that we build our ships with communication devices."

The asari looked at him confused - and in Tela's case - slightly insulted. Of course they assumed their ships had communication devices, how else would they be able to communicate... Oh, right, _Skynet_.

"Now it makes sense." Benezia said out loud. They _didn't_ have ways to communicate between ships because it would be pointless when they could communicate between individual _people_.

"Oh, that's not good." Tela had paled greatly. "Matriarch, it's C-Sec policy to shoot down any ship that doesn't respond to a coms link." During the Rachni War, they kind of needed to that and it just stuck even after the insectoids were declared extinct.

For a second Benezia was afraid that something terrible would happen, then remembered that her shuttle was still on the ship. "Don't worry." She assured the Captain and other asari. "I'll get to my shuttle and contact them through its coms system." She made her way to to exit of the pilot's room. "You best prepare a small group to speak with the Council, Captain. Come Tela." Anderson nodded in farewell.

**'~,_,~'**

_"... I just received news that Matriarch Benezia, a person of high importance to the asari has returned to the Citadel from her Council-appointed expedition to make contact with the new species found trying to activate the 314-Relay by the turians."_

Councilor Tevos blinked, looking up from the data pad she was reading to the television on the far side of her office. Benezia had returned? Why had she not been informed?

_"And from the looks of things here at the lower docks, it looks like she had successfully made peaceful contact."_ The reporter - a young asari maiden - continued as the view changed to see a ship in the distance, too far away to make out the specific details. Tevos' Omni-tool suddenly lit up with mail from - speak of the devil - Benezia.

::I made contact. Gather the Council.::

The message was short and simple. It made the asari frown. Usually, Benezia would have gone into a long dialog of what she learned of the new species so far. That she had not meant one of two things. One, she learned nothing - unlikely - or two, she wanted the meeting to happen as quickly as possible.

_"And here's the Matriarch coming in now."_ Tevos looked back at the large screen. It showed a shuttle she recognized touching down in the docks. The side door opened and Benezia stepped out, her expression causing Tevos a slight amount of alarm. It was barely noticeable, but to someone who had known the composed asari as long as Tevos had, it was plain as day. Benezia's complexion was paler than usual and her eyes were slightly sunken in. If Tevos had to guess, her old friend probably suffered many unpleasant shocks in her brief stay with the new aliens. _"Matriarch Benezia."_ The reporter - who was obviously having a slight fangirl moment - spoke to the older asari, making the Matriarch jumped slightly. Tevos' frown deepened. That was unlike Benezia. _"What can you tell me about this new race brought to Citadel Space?"_

Benezia looked blankly at the younger asari for a few seconds before speaking in a voice that Tevos could tell was slightly strained when compared to her normal tone. _"There is much more to them than I would like."_ Not bothering to explain herself further, the Matriarch left with the camera following her for a moment before returning to the disgruntled reporter.

_"Well then."_ Before anything else could be said, another asari stepped out of shuttle. Tevos recognized her as the young Vasir, and wondered why she winced as she stepped out of the craft, gently holding her stomach. Upon seeing her, the reporter moved in to tear into the fresh meat. _"Excuse me, but what can you tell me about this new species?"_

Tela wheeled back at suddenly having a mike and camera thrown in her face but managed to regain most of her composer within a respectable time. _"The humans?"_ Tela asked.

_"Is that what they're called?"_ The reporter immediately dove in at finally getting some information. Tela gave a hesitant nod. _"What are they like?"_

_"Uh, I don't think I'm aloud to tell you that."_ Tela said slowly. _"It is Council information after all... I think."_ It was clear by the way she was shifting that Tela really wanted to get out of there.

_"Can't you say anything?"_ The reporter batted her eyelashes in an attempt to squeeze out information.

_"Uh, well, uh, they... um."_

_"Yes?"_

_"They have really weird body paint?"_ It came out more as a question, but the reporter still latched onto it.

_"How so? Are the patterns strange? Do they paint explicit areas?"_ The reporter blinked as she said that. _"And if so, how would _you_ know that?"_

_"Uh, you see... How about this, imagine a volus mixed together with a vorcha."_ At Tela's words, the reporter made a face like she smelled something incredibly foul.

_"Is that what they look like?"_

_"Well..."_ Tela moved to the side slightly. _"No, that's just something I thought up on the spot."_ And then she raced past the reporter before she could be stopped.

_"Hey! Wait!"_ When the reporter scowled it was obvious that Tela did not listen to her. _"Well, that wasn't very informative."_

Though the report continued, Tevos had already left her office after sending a message to the other Council ambassadors. She had to find Benezia.

**'~,_,~'**

Hannah looked around in curiosity as she, Anderson, and Naruto were led through the Citadel by Tela and a turian who had so far not said anything. Various species of reporters were hovering at a distance, aching to get a word in. They had tried to get interviews earlier but did not possess the updated version of the translator that Benezia and Tela had. Plus, as none of the humans wanted to deal with camera crews and mikes right now, Hannah had begun angrily cursing at them in her native tongue - which they did not understand - until they left the group alone.

Of the humans, Anderson was there because he was to be the spokesperson. Shepard was there because she fought the turians and might be needed to speak. Naruto was there because he felt like it.

The Commissioner smiled at the surroundings. The artificial lighting, recycled air, and the ever so slight upwards curve of the horizon brought back a wave of nostalgia. "It feels like I'm back on Sandalphon."

Anderson looked at her when he heard her words. "You're a ring kid?" 'Ring kid' was a slang used for those who were born and raised on one the many Halos scattered across human space.

Hannah nodded. "Yep, and proud of it. You?"

"I was born out on Pluto, but we spent the majority of my childhood on the move." Anderson answered.

"What are you talking about?" Tela asked. The turian looked startled - though it was hard to tell with his facial structure - that the asari understood what was being said, but quickly went back to ignoring all of it.

"We have these things called Halos that are kinda like this Citadel." _Only much bigger._ She did not add the ending because Tela and Benezia seemed very proud of this station and Hannah felt it would be insulting to say it was less than impressive to someone who grew up on the First Great Halo. "I was born on one and lived there until I was... one hundred and seventeen? Yeah, that's right."

Tela nodded, then snapped back to the redhead. "Wait, is that in _years_?"

Hannah nodded. "Yes, why?"

"How old are you?" The asari ignored the question.

"Two hundred and thirty-two."

Tela blinked owlishly. "How long do humans live for?"

Hannah hummed in thought, idly searching through Skynet for the answer. "On average, a human can live between eight and nine hundred years." She looked a the alien. "What's the life span for asari?"

"We live around a millennia usually. I'm only a hundred and ninety." She said with a shrug. "Though that is very uncommon, so that makes humans only the third known species that can live for more than a century. Krogans live about the same as asari." She frowned at that. Evidently Tela liked the krogan about as much as she liked the turians. "Turians and quarians can sometimes live to a hundred if they're healthy, something that's damn near impossible for quarians so they usually only live to eighty or so. Salarians are infamous for being lucky if they live to see twenty." She scowled in though. "I don't actually know how long volus or batarians live for, but the vorcha live for about three to five years I think."

While Anderson milled over the the wide range of lifespans and Naruto silently walked in the back, Hannah gave the asari a smirk. "So, you're younger than me?" Completely bypassing the information, the Commissioner threw a hand over the asari's shoulders. "You fought well for a little baby."

Tela groaned, knowing enough about Hannah to dread the rest of the walk to the Presidium.

**'~,_,~'**

Tevos found her fellow asari and old friend waiting patiently just outside the Council Chambers. Though she looked better than she did over the news report, Benezia still seemed stressed. "Benezia?" She asked, getting an almost unnoticeable jump of surprise in return. Tevos' frown returned.

"Ah, Tevos." The Matriarch gave a graceful bow. "A pleasure to see you again." The frown Tevos wore deepened. Benezia was being formal - they have not spoken formally outside a meeting with others since many, many years ago.

"What's wrong with you Benezia? You're acting strangely." Benezia looked slightly surprised by her bluntness, but answered nonetheless.

"My apologies. but the humans are a much more... complicated species than I expected."

"Humans? Is that what they are called?" The salarian Councilor, Sakare, asked in curiosity as he walked up to the two asari. The turian Councilor, Sparatus, was trailing behind him. Benezia gave a polite nod to each of them.

"Councilors."

"Matriarch." Sakare nodded in return. Sparatus had a look that anyone who knew the turian facial structure would know was angry.

"Then where are these _humans_?" The turian almost literally spit out the last word. He no doubt was still feeling angry for the loss of his people. Tevos held back a sigh. Quick to anger was a trait shared by what seemed like every turian Councilor when they were first elected. Hopefully, he would calm down after a few years like the others.

"They will be here soon." Tevos tried to calm her fellow Councilor.

"Council." Matriarch Benezia drew their attention back to herself. Though it was unnoticeable to everyone sans her fellow asari, there was a odd firmness in her voice. "I must implore you to make peace with the humans, no matter what."

"_What_?" Sparatus growled out. He made it no secret that he wanted to punish the new species for nearly activating the 314 Relay. It was a weak argument, but he stayed by it. "Any particular reason you're saying this, Matriarch?"

"Yes." Benezia was not even looking at him, her gaze had been drawn to something over Tevos' shoulder. "We cannot afford to have them as an enemy." Sakare followed her gaze, shortly followed by Tevos. Sparatus just continued to give a barely hidden glare to the Matriarch. Had he looked, he would have seen three strange people - the humans probably - stepping out of the elevator with Tela and a young turian that Tevos recognized as the younger son of the Admiral who died in the fight against the humans, though his name escaped her at the moment.

"Why do you say that?" The salarian Councilor asked. "Judging from the scans of their ships, their technology is not that impressive. They do not even know about Mass Effect technology." Of course the salarian would somehow get scans of their ship. By now Sparatus had followed the three others' gaze. At first he was confused, not recognizing the humans, before realization dawned on his face and his glare returned with twice the force.

"Oh they know about Mass Effect technology." Benezia assured him with the strangest tone Tevos had ever heard from her. It was almost like she had an internal joke but was afraid of the punch line. "They just did not want to use it and instead made their own way to achieve faster than light travel." The three blank stares from the Councilors did not even phase Benezia. "Also, from what little I've seen, at least some of them can go one-on-one with a krogan warlord and win." Her eyes met Tevos. "So, I repeat myself - make peace with them in any way you can."

**'~,_,~'**

Hannah and David stood on a podium of sorts, waiting for this Council they had heard so much about to show themselves. Off to one side was Tela and the turian escort - who silently glared at Hannah the entire time. To the other side, Naruto leaned against a wall. Even if the blonde was not asked to come by anyone, no one had stopped him. He was Naruto freaking Uzumaki, you _can't_ stop him! Not that any of the humans tried, mind you.

While Naruto and Captain Anderson stood perfectly still, waiting patiently, Hannah was fidgeting uncomfortably, her tail twitching every few seconds. She never did well just standing still, something she was told goes away with age. Whether that was true or the two older humans present were just weird, she did not know.

Just when Hannah was contemplating if it would be worth it to see if she could rip off the railing - and if she could, then how far could she throw it - the Council members walked onto the stage across the gap from the podium she and Anderson stood on.

"Greetings." The asari said with a kind smile. "I am Councilor Tevos, these are my companions Councilor Sparatus and Councilor Sakare." She gestured to the turian, who looked just as angry as every other one of his species that Hannah had met to date - maybe that was just how their facial structures looked? - and the frog-like alien. Sparatus, predictably, glared while Sakare gave a polite nod.

Anderson - designated spokesperson for humans - returned the nod. "Captain David Anderson." He gestured to the woman next to him who was currently uploading a live recording of the meeting to every Kage of the Systems Alliance. "Commissioner Hannah Shepard."

"And your other companion?" Tevos nodded to the other human, who lacked the black markings the first two had.

The Captain looked confused before he looked back and saw Naruto. "Ah, Naruto Uzumaki." He finally said, rather lamely. As far as he knew, no one had introduced Naruto in... well, ever. Hannah snickered.

Though she was confused by the reaction, Tevos just assumed that Anderson had forgotten about the third human. He was probably only a security guard anyway. "Well Captain, am I to assume that you are the one chosen to speak on the behalf of the - humans was it?" At the dark skinned man's nod, she continued. "Then out first objective is to discuss the... unfortunate first meeting between humans and turians."

"Yes, let's start with that." Sparatus growled out. When Anderson looked at him, the human's face changed from the respectful blank look he gave Tevos to a scowl and narrowed eyes. The turian Councilor had never seen a human before, but their facial structure were similar enough to asari that he could tell Anderson was no more happy with turians than he was with humans.

"You gave an unprovoked attack on a civilian transport." Anderson started off, sounding far more bitter than when he was talking with Tevos.

"It is against Council law to activate an inactive Mass Relay." Sparatus shot back instantly.

"We had no knowledge of this law." Anderson returned just as fast. "And instead of trying to explain it to us, you attacked our ship, and then our colony."

The turian narrowed his eyes. "I cannot speak for the Admiral of the fleet, as he is now deceased. What I can say, is that he probably found evidence of a large military detachment and believed them to be a threat. To protect himself from the danger-" He had to stop as Hannah gave a loud snort, drawing attention to her. "Do you have something to say?" Sparatus growled out.

"Yeah, I do." The redhead said hotly. "If you picked up evidence of an army then your scanners are shit."

"_What_?"

"What I think the Commissioner is trying to say." Anderson cut in before Tevos could, not even glancing at Hannah. "Is that as per Leaf Law #67, no government funded military is allowed to exist. So, by extension, there was no military personnel or installations of Shanxi."

"Don't give me that!" The turian Councilor yelled, swiping his hand to the side. Benezia, who had moved into the room at some point and was now standing next to Tela, winced. Apparently Sparatus did not take her advice seriously. She just hoped he did not doom them all. "We lost thousands of our best soldiers, two of our best ships, and you yourself said you were a Captain!" He pointed at Anderson at the last one. "How do you pass that off as not having a military?"

"Well obviously _your_ armed forces suck!" Hannah snapped back. "Cause they got their scrawny asses handed to them by a lowly populated city of civilians and police!" Anderson looked like he was about to stop her for a second, as Tevos did for Sparatus, but both decided to just let this play out.

"Do _not_ insult my people!" The turian yelled back.

"Then don't insult _mine_, asshole!" Was Hannah's articulate response. "You're basing this off the fact that you _lost_! All that means is that _we're better than you_! There has not been a human military for over _four thousand years_!"

"I have more to base it off than that!" Even through the anger, there was the smallest hints of smugness in his voice. "With the surviving communications we determined that you were using the planet to test biological weaponry!"

Whatever response Hannah was going to yelled died in her throat. "... Huh?"

"What are you talking about?" Anderson asked, feeling just as confused as Hannah looked, though he hid it much better.

"We have reports of your people breathing fire, throwing massive vehicles around like toys, defying gravity, and creating lightning storms in their hands!" The turian sounded extremely smug now. "But the biggest evidence is the Captain of the last ship said the other two were ripped apart by _thresher maws_!" Every nonhuman in the room was taken aback by that last one. "Such things just aren't possible." He turned to the salarian. "You are known as a great thinker Councilor Sakare, even among my people. What is your opinion on this?"

Sakare put a hand to his chin in thought as he spoke up for the first time since the meeting began. "While it is possible that they have gone through severe genetic alterations, that does not explain the... thresher maws." He paused for only a handful of seconds. "The most likely reason would be the usage of some kind of hallucinogen. If that is true, then it does point to a use of biological weapons and military force on the planet."

Sparatus looked - if possible - even more smug. Tevos on the other hand looked confused, as she saw the expressions scattered around the room. Captain Anderson's confusion had disappeared and he stood there looking almost bored. Hannah likewise, was no longer looked befuddled, but instead it had been replaced with mirth - her tail waved behind her with obvious amusement. Apparently she found something very funny about what was being said. Benezia was pinching the bridge of her nose, something Tevos knew she only did when she thought someone was being an idiot. Tela was looking at Hannah with a calculating look, like she was sizing her up. For a moment, Tevos thought that maybe Tela was imagining the redhead with the magic powers Sparatus mentioned, but surely she was not naïve enough to think they were possible?

"As you can see, there are very valid reasons for the caution the late Admiral Arterius felt." Sparatus continued, either unknowing of the looks around the room or uncaring. "For all we know, it was _humans_ who attacked first. Few of our own records survived and you have just proven to be untruthful. So, what do you have to say for yourself?" He finally saw Hannah's expression and scowled. "What's so funny?"

Hannah opened her mouth to speak but closed it at a look from Anderson - who seemed to have learned to not to let the Commissioner speak her mind. The Captain looked back at the Council, trying to keep his face blank. "It is unfortunate that you did not have enough time for Matriarch Benezia to inform you of what is considered normal for humans, especially after Commissioner Shepard went to great... lengths to show them such." He sent another side-long glance at Hannah, who looked sheepish and refused to meet his gaze. "To address each of your claims - breathing fire is not that difficult nor uncommon, I myself can do it." Sparatus recoiled at the calm, almost bored way Anderson said that. Tevos managed to keep her surprise to a mere blink and Sakare gained a spark in his eye that anyone familiar with salarians would know meant he was curious. "I do not know the standards of physical strength for your people, but based on the information from your attack it is a fraction of what the average human can do." Anyone else would have said that smugly, but Anderson kept his tone bland. Years of being a captain and not taking sides in his crew's conflicts was good for something else, apparently. He could be a little more polite, though. "As for defying gravity, could you be more specific?"

"The ability to stand and run on vertical surfaces without any special equipment." Sakare spoke up before either of his colleges could, the curiosity blazing in his large dark eyes. How he got the information that only the turians had prior, no one wanted to ask.

Hannah gave a short laugh before Anderson could stare her down again. "Everyone can do that!"

The Captain frowned but spoke before the hanyo could continue. "For many millennia, it has been a custom - a coming of age trial of sorts - for parents to teach their children how to do such. This is usually done when they are still young and after completing it they are usually taught how to stand on the surface of water." Sparatus, who was about to call his bluff, recoiled again at that. "After that is learned, it is customarily for parents to teach their children anything else they know, such as breathing fire." While his tone was still bored, Anderson sounded far more polite when talking to the salarian as apposed to the turian.

"And creating lightning storms in their hands?" Sakare hedged, his intelligent mind coming up with the idea quickly.

The Captain nodded. "And creating lighting storms in their hands." He confirmed. As if sensing the smile on Hannah's face, he shot the Commissioner another look. "Don't."

She pouted, then smiled again. "But the Kages' believe they need a demonstration to prove our claims."

Anderson frowned as the same message scrolled across his vision as well. Relenting at his superiors' orders, he turned back to the Council. "It would appear that our leaders - the Kages - believe that it would be more believable should you see these 'hallucinations' in person. Your reports on lighting were most likely based on Commissioner Shepard here and how she fought during the invasion of Shanxi."

As all other eyes in the room focused in on Hannah, she smiled and raised her right hand, palm up. With no visible movement, streaks of lightning sparked to life along her whole arm. They jumped across her skin and between her fingers, leaving no burn marks. Anderson wisely took a step to the side to avoid being struck by any stray bolts. The display barely lasted a few seconds, but after it died down the stunned silence continued on for almost five minutes.

"As you can clearly see," A smirking Hannah said. "we can do many things."

"And the... thresher maws?" Sparatus said slowly, cautiously. He did not like how this meeting was progressing. Belatedly, he realized that he should probably have followed Benezia's words from before.

Hannah's smirk disappeared into a frown. "Only one man was able to do that with thresher maws. He had been taken prisoner by the turians and released them inside of your ship, he did not survive." The reminder of her now deceased friend sobered her amusement that had been building as the meeting went on.

Obviously, it was the salarian that picked up on the way she said that and its hidden message. "You say that like it is possible to do such with things other than thresher maws."

Seeing as she did not want to talk anymore, Anderson took the conversation away from Hannah again. "Yes, it's called a Summoning and it is... rare. Less than point-zero-one percent of the population have a working contract. Ken Williams was the only person who had managed to create a contract with thresher maws and now that he is dead it is likely that the only his immediate family and their descendants will have the right to do the same."

"How does it work?" Sakare continued, falling victim to the famous salarian curiosity.

Anderson frowned. It felt strange to talk about these things when everyone else he'd ever known knew just as much about them as he did. It felt like it should be kept a secret, but there was no real reason not to tell them, and the Kages did not tell him to stop talking so they saw no problem with it. "I do not know how it works." Which meant it was nowhere on Skynet. "It is common knowledge how to make a contract, but I don't think anyone really understands the technicalities of it." Then he remembered that there was one person in the room who probably fell out of that category. "Well, there might be one person." He glanced over his shoulder at Naruto, who had not moved from where he leaned against the wall. The others followed his gaze with varying levels of confusion as to why he was looking at who they assumed was his bodyguard.

The blonde legend stared back at Anderson, then at the other eyes around the room. "A Summoning Contract," The people - human or otherwise - around the room had various uncomfortable reactions to his voice. "is a binding between two beings that links their life forces together through blood. Through the application of the blood and life force of one of them, they can break through various laws of physics and summon the other to their location."

After he finished, the listeners filed away the new information, two of them already posting it to Skynet.

Trying to get the meeting back on track, Anderson turned back to the Council. "Now that we have been proven to not be liars," He sent a glare at Sparatus so briefly it was almost unnoticeable. "can we please get back to the main topic of this meeting?"

Sparatus did not look like he wanted to talk anymore and Sakare had gone into 'thinking mode' - completely cut off from the world around him and muttering about 'life force'. Seeing this, Tevos once more took up the leading position that always seems to fall to the asari in these kinds of Council meetings.

**'~,_,~'**

Even after all the... surprises, the meeting had not gone exactly how Tevos expected it to. To start, she had given an abridged version of the Council's history. The humans found it odd for some reason that it was not the Council that built the Citadel and that it had been discovered instead. They also looked very confused at how the Citadel - measuring just over forty-four kilometers in length - was the largest artificial structure they had.

"But you've been here for almost two thousand years, how have you not been able to construct anything larger?" Anderson asked.

"Mass Effect Cores give off a large amount of heat exhaust." Sakare - the resident genius - explained. "As such, ships get exponentially more dangerous to build and use as the size increases. The Protheans had somehow managed to get around this, but we have not managed to find out how yet. Until we do, we will not be able to build anything close to this size and have even the slightest hope that it will hold together, much less work."

Anderson and Hannah shared a look and Naruto smirked in the background, but none asked anything farther on the subject. Sakare desperately wanted to ask what was their largest construct when they were not bound by Mass Effect Cores, but Tevos refused to let the meeting go onto anymore tangents and continued with the history lesson.

She explained the Rachni Wars and Krogan Rebellions that followed. When she mentioned that the resulting law that limited all standing militaries of Council species be limited to fifteen percent of their population, Anderson and Hannah scowled. The following argument was short lived, as the humans explained that with their military now allowed to reform, well over that many humans were signing up to join.

"We are all limited by this law, and should you join the Council, you will too." Sparatus spoke up for the first time in hours. As his people were the most militaristic of the Council species, he was silently designated the one to talk about this matter.

Anderson scowled at the turian. "You don't understand. Many of my people are angry from the attack on Shanxi. If we don't let them join the official military they will just form their own militias. Opposition will rise and we could very well find ourselves in a civil war."

Sparatus scowled, he could not brush such a thing aside, but he refused to budge on the issue. Tevos, ever the voice of peace, spoke. "How much of your population is willing to join?"

"At this point, almost sixty-five percent." Anderson answered, reading off the latest results from Skynet.

The Council was surprised by that number, and rightly so. The turians were the only Council species that even came close to the fifteen percent cap, with about thirteen percent of their population in the military. It might be higher but it was an old tradition for only males to enter the army. The asari came in second with just under eleven percent. All the other species fell into the single digits. Even the most bloodthirsty species they knew of, the krogan - though they never had an actual _official_ military - only had about twenty-two percent of their population seeing action during the Rachni Wars and Krogan Rebellions. It was quickly deduced by the Council that humanity must have a low population in comparison to the Council species, maybe even lower than the quarians. It matched their expectations that a species with another mode of FTL travel would have been encountered long ago and so humans probably only had space travel for a few decades and only inhabit a handful of planets, if that. This logic would also state that the sixty-five percent of such a low number would not actually be that impressive.

Even though Sparatus did not like it, Tevos and Sakare agreed to let humans not have a cap on their military, temporarily at least. "It does not matter in the long run." Tevos reasoned. "As long as there are no major conflicts in the next few years, the majority of their military is bound to leave the service."

If they had bothered to ask what the population of humanity was, how long they have had space travel, or how many planets they have colonized like they should have, the resulting answer would have been much, much, _much_ larger than they hypothesized.

Then Tevos got to the Geth War.

The war itself had little impact on the humans as they had zero ties with the quarians or geth, but the resulting laws at the end caused the worst argument of the meeting.

"WHAT?" Hannah's yell came out of nowhere and was so loud in comparison to to Tevos' calm monologue that everyone jumped. "The fuck do you mean that AIs are illegal?" Anderson, who had silenced the Commissioner with a glance every time she spoke up, did not even react to her words as he stared at Tevos with confusion dancing across his face.

Tevos scowled at Hannah. The asari was beginning to get annoyed with the redhead and her foul mouth.

"It became obvious that AIs were too volatile and felt no connections to organics." Sakare spoke up. Though he had no personal experience with AI and did not specialize in synthetics, he still knew enough to be the main spokesperson on the subject. "As such, they could never be expected to live peacefully with them."

"That's stupid!" This time, Hannah was silenced, but it was actually by a combination of Anderson's warning glare and messages from the Kages who seemed to believe it was best for her to not speak out for now. It was still hard for her to keep quiet as she could hear Rolo growling obscenities in her head.

"What the Commissioner is _trying _to say," Anderson looked just as angry as Hannah did, both humans glaring at Sakare. "Is that that law might be a problem."

Tevos was about to speak her question on why, when the answer hit her with the force of a brick to the head. "You... use AIs." The eyes of her fellow Councilors and the three other non-humans in the room widened as much as their respective anatomies would allow. Of course they would would not want to get rid of any Artificial Intelligence computers if they found them helpful.

"We do have AIs." Anderson said evenly, refusing to say 'use'. "And we will not destroy them any time soon."

Sparatus gave the turian equivalent of a scowl. "Then you will lead to the demise of your species and we will not take part in the slaughter."

"None of your ships will be allowed in Council space either if they have AIs in them." Sakare added. The only reason neither of them were threatening the humans with war or something else was because Benezia's words had sunk into both of them by this point and they really did not want humans as their enemies that badly. Besides, as long as they stayed away it would not affect them.

A staring contest between the two factions sprouted and Rolo barely managed to hold Hannah back from shouting out again. "Very well." Anderson said evenly. "It is unfortunate that very few of our ships will bother to come here then."

The rest of the meeting was tense and when the humans left shortly afterwards, there was much to be desired. The Systems Alliance and Council were definitely not allies, but neither were they enemies. An office in the presidium was reserved for a human ambassador, should they wish it and they did not bring an AI. Sparatus publicly apologized on behalf of the Turian Hierarchy for the attack of Shanxi. It was agreed on that the two factions should give each other space for a while to let the animosity cool down, so no trade agreements were made, much to Sakare's disappointment as he wanted to take apart the first human ship he came across.

All and all, not much changed for any species.

**'~,_,~'**

Hannah sighed as she sat in a random hallway of the _Kametachi_, a bottle of beer in hand. She was in the lower levels of the ship, so it was unlikely anyone would come down here.

"What's got you so depressed?"

Unlikely, but apparently not impossible.

The Commissioner shivered at the voice and looked up to the legend she had learned much about in the past few days. "Is there a reason I should be happy?" She asked. Naruto was obvious pleased with something if the small smile on his face was anything to go by. "The meeting went terribly wrong, and I probably didn't help by being there." She scowled, belatedly realizing how unprofessional she acted.

A hand clapped her shoulder, making her jump. Naruto had somehow managed to sit down next to her without her realizing it. "The meeting went better than I expected."

Hannah frowned. "How do you see that?"

Naruto just smiled at her. "I've spent almost my entire life trying to gain world peace, and I will continue to do so. This is just a little hiccup, they've happened before." He snatched the bottle from Hannah's fingers and took a swallow. "Your foul mouth aside, we managed to keep from going to war and thus, are still at peace." This time when he smiled at her, Hannah could not help but return it. "It might be tentative, but someday true peace will be a fact of life for us again - I will personally see to that."

"You have a strange way of looking at things." Hannah admitted with a small smile.

The legend gave a large toothy smile. "Thank you."

* * *

**End**

**... Meh.**

**Oh yeah! Virtual cookie to anyone who can guess what the actual Commander Shepard's first name is going to be! In case you never read that little text below the title of the story, Shepard will be female... because I say so.**

**I'll even be nice and give you... twelve percent of a cookie if you guess who her father is!**

**I'll give you the rest of the cookie if you get the reference with the amount in the above line. That movie is ****awesome!**

**Explanation time!**

**I don't actually know Sparatus' personality very well, so I kind of just made him an ass. Hey, it worked.**

**Sakare is an OC, and I just pulled the first name I could think of out of my head. It's probably not salarian-ish enough, but there was no real reason to try that much considering he'll be dead before he makes another appearance.**

**In ME, the geth were not originally AIs, just very advanced VIs. I just don't see much a difference between the two and needed something to keep the SA and Council separate. So, geth are still only VIs, but they made people afraid of what actually fully sentient computers could do so AIs were banned.**

**Hooray**** for Hannah's colorful language! Won't she make a great mother? And no, that was not Chidori in case you mistook it.**

**Until Next time,  
- - _Sorcerer of the East_**


	5. The Butcher

**Damn. I missed my deadline. I took the manly approach and decided to actually do my work ahead of time instead of this. Sorry about that to anyone who thinks less of me.**

**I repeat - damn! Two people actually correctly guessed Shepard's name! I was not expecting that! One of them not only named it right, but even got the hair color right! Props to you _Minati_!**

**I repeat - DAAAAAAAMN. The review count almost almost doubled. I have no idea why that ****happened, maybe my winning personality? *Smiles creepily***

**But seriously, thank you to everyone who took part in the 72 (WOOP!) reviews that were posted between the last update and this one.**

**I regret to inform all my loyal readers and reviewers that this coming week will be hell for me. I probably won't get any time to do anything fun at all! Even now I'm procrastinating and not doing something that really needs to get done in order to post this. I probably won't update for like a week, but the next chapters almost fully done already and I promise you that it will be posted at some point, I just can't say when.**

"Text like this is talking normally."

_"Text like this is being said through a radio or Skynet or something else like that."_

::Text like this is being being read, like on paper or Skynet or something.::

**Posted: 1/14/2013  
Word count: 10,418 (that's like... fourteen words less than the third chapter. I think I'm losing my edge.)  
Brief Summary: Skylian Blitz! I'm saying this ahead of time that I'm not too proud of this chapter, even after rewriting it, but, meh, I probably can't do any better.**

**Hope you enjoy.**

* * *

**Chapter 5**

**The Butcher**

* * *

_5157 AU: The First Contact War, though not long, began and ended. The recordings of the meeting between Captain Anderson, Commissioner Shepard, and the Council was released onto Skynet three days after the events. As expected, many were angered by the laws the Council had in place, especially the ban on AIs. There were over a billion Artificial Intelligence programs scattered across every bit of human space, each one sentient and just as alive as humans. Citizens were pacified however when the Council took no action against the Systems Alliance._

_5158: The plans for military training and a chain of command were finalized and the right to join was given to anyone who wanted to. It was however decided that the traditions of old where one could become fully fledged soldiers at the age of twelve were barbaric and an age restriction was placed on recruits. You now had to be at least eighteen years of age to join the military. As expected, the now famous David Anderson was among the trillions that flocked to join. _Unexpectedly_, the even more famous Hannah Shepard did _not_ join. Her reasons behind doing so were never found out, and she could never be asked as she practically disappeared. She kept in contact with friends and family, but they claimed to not know where she was._

_5160: The Systems Alliance released another upgrade for the Alpha - now Beta - Nerves. Among the many features these new 'Gamma Nerves' gave, was a connection between the Heads Up Display and military munitions to allow better usage with soldiers._

_5162: The incredibly large call for making starships capable of space warfare was answered with the _War Fleet_. The thousands of ships of all shapes and sizes were designed and made with the sole purpose of fighting in the vacuum of space. With the completion of the _War Fleet_, the Systems Alliance Navy was finalized to run shoulder-to-shoulder with the Systems Alliance Army. Eventually, the one that would be placed in the seat of commanding the fleet would be an older, average human by the name Steven Hackett._

_5163: In one of the millions of human primary schools in existence, on the surface of Gaia, in the continent of Sannin, the names of the new first graders sat on the principal's desk. Among the many names, one in particular was lost in the sea of others - _Kushina Shepard.

_5175: The first world in the Venus System - Elysium - was terraformed. Immigrants began to trickle in to the system._

_5176: Humanity had another encounter with an alien species, this one being about the same as the greeting they received from the turians. Batarian pirates had attacked Elysium. As this was only a blooming system, it had little military in the region. There was however, a single ship nearby - part of the _War Fleet_. It was commanded by Captain Jon Grissom. The Captain was able to successfully ward off the attack and destroy the batarian ships. He did however, have to let one ship get away as it had managed to capture human prisoners before escaping the planet. Even as Captain Grissom gave chase, the batarian ship managed to evade capture and escape to areas unknown with two hundred and fifty-nine human prisoners, over half of which were children. As some were still connected to Skynet, their friends and families could keep in contact. Others were so young that their Izanami Seals had not even fully matured yet. Despite this, they had no idea where they had been taken and could not give the information those who could save them._

For two years, everyone had to watch, horrified as their people were kept as slaves. They were treated terribly and lived in conditions that very few had seen before. Many people hated the turians for the attack on Shanxi, but it had gradually simmered down over the years. But everyone _loathed_ the batarians. More than a dozen times, the Systems Alliance had contacted the main batarian government - the Hegemony - to tell them of this attack. The Hegemony had simply said that there was nothing they could do about the pirates, so they never bothered to try.

_July 24, 5178 AU: One of the slavers slipped, probably unknowingly, and revealed the location of the base to a slave. They were on Torfan._

**'~,_,~'**

**Codex Update**

Magnetic Accelerant Cannon (MAC): It was decided early on that making giant Taihou Seals for ships would be ineffective. Not only would it be difficult to make, but if even a single part of it was damaged by return fire or random space debris, it could backfire and destroy the ship. The answer was inspired by the turians as a matter of fact. MAC weapons have long barrels with specialized storage seals to reload them and an even more specialized seal along the inside of the barrel to propel the projectiles. The second seal creates a linear magnetic field that continually increases the velocity of the projectile until it exits the barrel, propelling it with enough force to shatter large asteroids. As a side effect, the metal shells are heated a 10,000 degrees Kelvin from the energy release. The MAC Weapons quickly became the heavy hitting space warfare weapon of choice.

Swords: Widely used and highly versatile long ago, they are still made and bought for collection and sparing. Hannah Shepard's use of a sword on Shanxi had become famous and was a perfect example of what they can do in a battle. As such, it was a popular option to be trained in the use of swords and other melee weapons if you joined the military.

Shield Generators: Based off of designs taken from the turians during the Battle of Shanxi, the Systems Alliance successfully reverse engineered the technology and upgraded it with extreme use of Fuinjutsu.

Hard Suits: Armor created through layering microscopic sheets of ceramics. There is no 'standard issue' as they have to be altered for those with hanyo traits, but a full set is given to everyone in the Army.

**'~,_,~'**

Captain Jon Grissom stood stoney faced on the bridge of his ship, the SSV _Odin_ as it passed through Hyperspace. In moments they would be returning to their normal dimension and be within spitting distance of Torfan. An infantry unit had been sent ahead to scout out the moon. As soon as he was reconnected to Skynet, Grissom would know what they had found. Even if they found nothing helpful, he would gladly fly in blind.

Grissom would save these people, even if cost him his life.

"Ten minutes until exiting Hyperspace." The navigator behind him spoke up. Grissom nodded and sent a message to everyone on the ship to return to their stations.

Break time was over, war was here again.

**'~,_,~'**

Torfan was a moon, though slightly on the larger side. It had an atmosphere barely thick enough to support life, but could not let anything natural grow on the surface. The entire orb of dirt had been transformed over time into a criminal wonderland where the shady thrived and the honest did not exist.

Basically, it was like Omega, minus the cheerful outlook.

The scouting team was supposed to find the base where the slaves were being held - of the 259 taken from Elysium two years ago only 106 were still alive. They were supposed to find it and any entrances that could be exploited, then wait until the main force arrived.

That was what they were _supposed_ to do. Unfortunately, that did not work out exactly as they planned.

Of the thirty soldiers of all ages and background that made up the recon team, the youngest was actually the leader - she was barely over twenty. When the young Sergeant had arrived, she had every intention of following her instructions. She and her team however, were not lucky enough to get to the scouting part. On the Sergeant's orders, the pilot maneuvered the ship as close to the biggest bunker they could find for a quick drop off.

Unfortunately, it appeared that Torfan was equipped with surface-to-air cannons. The concept was completely unheard of to humans, so they had no reason to expect them.

Of the thirty soldiers in the recon team, twelve survived being shot down and crashing.

Of those twelve, eight survived making it to cover.

And it was on this cursed moon, surrounded on three sides by enemies, crouching in a growing pool of blood, that the story of Kushina Shepard began.

**'~,_,~'**

"Sergeant! We need better cover!" A man yelled as the last of her subordinates managed to make into cover under the hail of batarian gunfire.

"I know that!" Shepard snapped back, whipping blood off from her helmet to see better. She refused to let that small, terrified part of her mind register where the blood came from, lest it send her into shock and get her killed.

Unfortunately, there was not much she could do. They were stuck in a crater with armed batarians closing in. The main problem, however, was the large tower of a canon that had shot down their small ship as it waited for a human to pop up to blast them to smithereens. Their shields could handle hand weapons - not antiaircraft rounds.

But she needed to do _something_, otherwise all of them would die.

With a lurch that made it look like she was about to gag, the Sergeant's brain shifted into a calm, calculating train of thought that she did not even know she could think of. Her strangely calm brain whispered the answer to her.

_Distraction._

They needed something to draw the cannon's fire away so that they could make a run for the only bunker in sight and hide in there for cover. With a few barked orders in a commanding voice, the remaining members of her squad got into positions.

When a dozen humans rushed from behind their cover, the cannon and all the batarians quickly fired at them. In the explosion of the antiaircraft round, none of them could tell that all the humans burst into smoke, rather than blood.

Three of Shepard's squad broke right, three broke left, and two broke forward - the Sergeant among the latter group. The surrounding batarians were so distracted after they thought they killed the humans that they did not at first notice they were being attacked.

The hundred or so yards that separated Shepard from the two batarians was little problem to cross.

Halfway to her targets, Kushina touched a storage seal on her right hip.

Three-fourths of the way, the batarians noticed her, probably because the weapon she took from the seal was not meant for stealth in anyway whatsoever.

Before they could raise their guns all the way, she was in the middle of the group of five.

Even though Kushina was short for a human - something she despised and blamed her father's genetics for - her 5'10" figure matched that of the batarians. As such, when she swung her weapon of choice, the blade connected with the first batarian on the right just below his shoulder. Moving much too slow to activate the kinetic barriers, the sharpened metal tore through the alien's flesh and armor with little problem. The other batarians managed to scramble away, a few squeezing the trigger of their guns. Unfortunately, neither action did any good. The bullets impacted harmlessly against Kushina's own recharged shields while her weapon continued its previous path. As the hunk of metal was a giant sword over six feet long (she was also angry at her father for that. He probably thought it was funny to give her a weapon that was taller than she was) it clipped the next two batarians in the chest. The tip of the blade cut in just deep enough into the armor and ribs ribs to be a fatal wound.

The man who Shepard designated to attack the forward group with was slightly slower than her, and he arrived only now. The man grabbed the fourth batarian's outstretched arm and yanked up, making it fire harmlessly into the gray sky. His other hand activated a summoning seal on his thigh and popped out a small black ball. He tossed the ball up at the slowly reloading cannon even as he yanked the alien's arm down hard enough to dislocate the shoulder.

The black orb he threw happened to a recent invention that contained thirty specially made Explosion Tags wrapped up inside the capsule. The man had put just the right amount of Chakra into it to delay it enough to explode just before it contacted with the cannon.

Ignoring the burst of fire and raining metal, Sergeant Shepard brought her massive sword into a shield to take the worst of the fifth batarian's weapon fire - her shields were already low. Just as the alien moved to reload, Shepard brought her hand up. The Taihou Seal engraved into the palm of her armored greaves surged to life and rained metal down on the enemy.

He was finished off, however, by a large ice lance that bypassed his shields and punctured his chest.

The last of the enemy's in her assigned group was killed when her partner ripped its head off.

They could not rest, however as more bullets impacted and finally depleted their shields. Shepard dove and tackled the man to the ground. A quick Skynet check with her subordinates showed that the three that broke left had failed.

The recon team was down to five.

The remaining group of batarians outside, were killed quickly however when a virtual blizzard came out of nowhere and flash froze them. The woman who created it - as well as the ice lance from earlier - collapsed form the sudden exert of Chakra.

Shepard moved into a crouch and scanned the area for any more hostiles, but saw none. She even waited for reinforcements to arrive, but none emerged from the bunker. Then again, it was unlikely that anything as common as gunfire and bloodcurdling screams would attract any attention around here.

Now that the battle was over, Kushina felt the blanket of calm that had covered her leave and her hands stared to shake, her vision became blurry from the tears that began to well up in her eyes. This was not how it was supposed to happen. As a recon team, they were just supposed to sneak around and learn what they could before the main fleet arrived. Instead she made the mistake to move in close and it got nearly her whole team killed.

_Stupid! Stupid! STUPID!_

She was young, brash, and so very _very stupid_. Why was she made leader? There was no way she could lead anyone!

The familiar grip of her sword was all that kept her standing as she looked at the four surviving humans, each bloody and breathing heavily. One of them was being treated to by another with copious amounts of Medigel - but he still might not make it.

Then, beneath the terror and self loathing, Kushina felt a much more potent emotion.

Hatred.

Her helmeted head snapped to the entrance of the bunker. She had no idea what was down there or how big it was, but that did not matter as her mind was made up.

"Get inside the bunker for cover!" She snapped at her surviving team. Not even waiting for them to respond, she tightened her grip on the massive sword she specialized in using. "I'll clear it out."

Giving the dead batarian she passed a stomp that reduced its head to mush, Shepard ran into the bunker, her only objective being to kill everything with four eyes.

**'~,_,~'**

_Now_ there was enough gunfire and screaming to draw attention. The echo of the narrow corridors was helping too. Apparently, the bunker led to a series of underground tunnels.

The hanyo clad in dark blue army hard suit was barely a blur as she sped through the subterranean base. Her massive cleaver of a sword sliced through anything that came within its considerable range.

Shepard turned around a corner, only to stop as she came face-to-face with five rifles. The split second before they fired, she jumped back. Her barriers barely withstood the bullets that did connect and the warning of near failure was blaring across her vision as she dove back into the hallway she had just come from.

Sensing weakness in her retreat, the batarians ran around the corner and raised their guns to shoot... nothing?

As they contemplated the empty hallway, the tump of heavy boots meeting the floor sounded behind them. Before the sound could even register, Shepard swung her sword upwards. With it, a gust of wind was let loose with enough force to shred the aliens to pieces.

Not even noticing the green blood that rained down on her, Shepard continued down her path. Apparently, that was the last of the guards as she found no other opposition until she reached the lower levels, which were nicely painted and decorated. There were also many doors on either side, so many so that the Sergeant did not know what to do now. It almost looked like a hotel.

"Damn, what now." She muttered, wishing she was not alone, but she would not take the surviving members of her squad down here in their current condition. Shepard had always been more durable and had greater energy than her peers, and she had no qualms about pushing herself as far as she needed to. Plus, she was so far uninjured besides a few pulled muscles that already healed.

She did not even know if these doors led to rooms or more hallways. She was hesitant to simply spam clones when she could need the Chakra for other things, but could not think of any alternative.

She stopped what she was about to do when a door to her left opened suddenly. Two batarians stepped out, laughing about something. One of them was dragging a mass of dark metal chains. The chains were connected to another alien - an asari if Kushina remembered correctly. The blue female-looking creature was badly malnourished and very dirty. It was easy to see the cuts and bruises that littered her body as the only thing she was wearing that could have passed for a pillow case - if the holes in it been fixed that is.

The asari was the first to see Kushina, if the widening of her tear-stained and sunken eyes was anything to go by. The batarians however only noticed the human after they literally ran into her. One looked ready to angrily yell at Kushina, but stopped when he noticed the copious amounts of bright green batarian and ruby human blood flowing off of her armor. For a few seconds none of them moved, then the batarian not holding the chains opened his mouth to yell a warning to everyone within listening distance.

In response, Kushina shot her palm out and crushed his windpipe - which she just confirmed could kill a batarian when he did not get back up.

As the other batarian moved to either run or fight back - it was impossible to tell which - Kushina's extended hand snaked around and grasped his throat. With almost no effort, she lifted him nearly two feet off the ground. He tried to claw her arm, but it did nothing against her sturdy armor. He stopped moving however when the edge of Kushina's weapon pressed against his cheek. One thing that most people should realize is that when someone is able to wield a _gigantic_ sword easily with _one_ hand, is that they should not be messed with. As an extension of that - when someone who can wield a gigantic sword with one hand puts said sword to your face while both it and its owner were dripping in blood, you really, _really_ need to listen to them.

"You can understand me, right?" Kushina said. Her voice had always been intimidating, making everyone shiver at even the nicest tone she could manage - that was the _one _thing she did not hate her dad for inheriting.

But right now, she was not happy. Oh no, she was _murderous_. As such, the batarian in her grasp froze up at her voice, looking like he would prefer death than to continue listening to her. Even the chained asari shivered at her voice.

The four-eyed alien in her grasp gave a jerky nod.

"Then tell me where the keys to these are." She kicked the chains he had dropped to show what she was referring to. Shepard could just bust them open, but she might hurt the asari if she did that, plus this was simpler. Shakily, the batarian took a key - the old twist kind - from his pocket and held it out. Kushina unceremoniously dropped him and grabbed the offered key before he hit the floor. "Good, now where do these doors lead to?"

The alien looked at her in a combination of anger and fear - mostly fear - as she bent down and began to free the silent asari who was looking at her in disbelief, like she could not believe someone was actually freeing her. "They're all rooms for either slaves or owners." The cuffs holding the asari in place clattered to the floor, and the batarian's anger finally won over his fear somehow. "That belongs to me! Every slave here belongs to someone!" Kushina helped the blue alien to stand on shaky feet. "I don't know what kind of screwed up government your people have, but with the Hegemony it's illegal to steal someone else's property."

Kushina snorted. "You openly practice slavery and _we_ have a bad government? You're pretty fucked up, you know that?" The batarian growled, causing the asari to flinch away, instinctively moving behind Kushina. "But, as I don't want to cause any kind of inter-species problem or something like that, I'll go by the Hegemony's laws too."

The asari turned a fearful look at Kushina and tried to back away, by the human kept her in place by holding her wrist. The batarian looked confused. Pleased, but still confused. "So, you won't take my property?"

"No, I won't." The human answered. "But if you're dead then she's not your property anymore." Shepard gave him just enough time to comprehend the words before she swung her great sword once more, cleanly slicing him in half from crotch to head. "Should have said if murder was illegal too." Turning back to the asari, she found her to be looking at the recently made corpse, er, corpse _pieces_ with an unreadable expression. "You okay?"

It took the asari a minute to respond. "Yes. Thank you."

Kushina nodded and directed her attention down the hallway, grimacing at how difficult it would be to clear out each room. "If you feel lucky you can try going back the way I came, but I don't know if there will be anyone else back that way-" She was cut off by a echoing click. Turning back, she found the asari to be holding a gun - a pistol the human thought it was called - that she had taken off of her late 'owner'.

"I'm not going anywhere, ma'am." She said with the fire of anger burning in her eyes. Recognizing it, Kushina knew it would be too difficult to force her back.

"Can you fight?" She asked instead.

"I'm decent with a pistol and my biotics are pretty good now that I can use them." She scowled at a special cuffs that Kushina had taken off her wrist. It was one of those that make the wearer unable to use biotics.

The Sergeant nodded. "Then follow." The asari nodded in turn.

The first and second doors Shepard kicked open each held only slaves. The noise from kicking the doors open drew attention however as a batarian came out to see what the commotion was. Foregoing stealth - she was not very good at it anyway - Kushina raised her free hand and flared the Taihou Seal. The way the batarian's skull shattered and painted the walls behind him was very satisfying, but the noise of the metal projectile breaking the sound barrier effectively gained the attention of everyone else on the floor.

A couple dozen batarians poured into the cramped hallway to see what was going on, most were armed. Before they could do much however, a large series of biotic waves knocked them off their feet. The asari Kushina first rescued had been joined by a freed turian and human biotic in creating the waves of dark energy. The gathered biotics had to switch their efforts to defense however when more batarians came out and opened fire.

Another freed human burst forward with bulging cheeks. Just as he passed through the biotic barrier, a great torrent of fire blew from his mouth. Seeing this, Kushina ignored the surprise of the nonhumans and swung her great sword, releasing another gale of wind. She did not like to do this often as it was hard to control, but with no friendlies in that direction, her caution was erased.

The batarians held no hope of surviving the wind and fire combo that seared through their armor and skin as they screamed.

As the asari, turians, and a salarian that were also freed stared in amazement at what they could only consider magic, the humans rushed forward and tore through the remaining opposition. Within ten minutes, the entire floor had been cleared and all the slaves had been freed, many of which grabbed any weapons they could find and joined the fight. Any slavers that managed to survive the attack fled to the lower levels.

**'~,_,~'**

"Dammit." The asari that Kushina first rescued - who she learned was named Seryna - cursed as their ragtag group was forced to stop as the only way forward was closed off by a large blast door. "Now what do we do?"

"We go back while we can." A salarian said from the back. "We're free, I say we leave."

"If you want to go, I'm not stopping you." Kushina said loudly as she walked forward, her voice making many of the people following her gain uncomfortable shivers running down their spines - or whatever their own anatomy had in replacement. The signs of battle were clear on her armor, now blacked and nicked. Her shield generator had been badly damaged from a grenade and was completely useless. Both her helmet and right gauntlet were so badly damaged that they were now little more than scraps. Her massive sword had to be used as a shield to block a rocket launcher and now more that half of the blade was gone. There also now seemed to be a constant ringing in her ears, and it was not going away. "I cannot guarantee what will happen if you leave though." She peeled off her damaged gauntlet, seeing as it would now be more of a hindrance than helpful.

"You're going to keep fighting?" Seryna asked.

Kushina nodded, unhooking what was left of her helmet. "I'm going to get as many people out of here as possible, and kill every batarian I can." She growled out the last part. Peeling the damaged ceramic off, she shoot her head to free her sweaty red hair. Her bright blue eyes with slitted pupils regarded the heavy metal door coldly. Her tail - which had thankfully not been hit - swung lazily behind her. "And no stupid door is going to stop me."

Walking forward with a purpose, she stopped just in front of the door. Putting down her destroyed blade, she cupped her hands together. The parts of her Izanami Seal that were now visible over her face and right hand glowed brightly. Blue Chakra began to collect between her hands, forming a sphere.

Shepard had already let her team down, and she would make sure it was not in vain.

**'~,_,~'**

On the other side of the door was a large room, aptly named the 'Store'. It was where new slaves were brought in to be showed off, to be sold to the highest bidder. At the moment, the few dozen batarians who escaped the upper floor were relieved when the three foot think blast doors were closed. The others in the room - almost two hundred more batarians and sixty or so slaves - had quickly found out what was going on.

They had all just laughed since there was no way they would make it through the blast doors. The small shrivel of hope that the slaves of various species had felt crumpled and died at their laughter.

After a minute of relaxing, there was a muffled screeching sound coming from the other side of the door. It was barely heard over the talking and loud music.

_BOOM_

The giant doors burst open in a way that they were not designed to. Everyone in the Store not chained down was either scrambling for cover, or knocked down by the force of the blast.

"STOP!" A lone batarian standing on top of the stage yelled out. He wore fancier clothing than the others and had a very strong shield generator attached to his back, so he was not worried about getting shot. "Stop panicking! They're just slaves! Everyone get a weapon and kill them!" He was obviously a leader. And while he was in no danger of the few bullets shot at him, he _was_ in immense danger if something like, say, a giant half destroyed cleaver sword was thrown at him.

Too bad for him he never expected something like that.

The remains of the weapon dug deep into his chest cavity and killed him instantly in an eruption of green blood.

And the firefight began anew.

**'~,_,~'**

This was when Captain Jon Grissom reentered Realspace, quickly followed by two hundred and forty-eight other war ships of various shapes and sizes. The enemy ships - which the recon team had snuck past - immediately noticed the fleet.

"Targets locked." The navigator to Grissom's left said. He was actually saying that every ship in the fleet had locked targets and was broadcasting that message to all the other captains as well.

_"Fire!"_ The Admiral of the attack fleet, Steven Hackett, relayed over Skynet.

"Fire!" Grissom repeated in confirmation. The great _BANG_ of the MAC weapon attached to his own ship matched that of the others. They already knew that none of the surviving human slaves were on any ships, and though it was a depressing thought that there may be slaves of other species on them, they could not let that get in the way of their primary objective.

The superheated metal jackets collided with one of the couple dozen ships each, resulting in great soundless explosions as the alien ships were punctured and their Mass Effect cores compromised.

_"All ships, move in to drop off foot soldiers."_ Admiral Hackett spoke over Skynet again to all the Captains in the fleet. The information from the recon team was immediately transferred and the ships set course to the unsuspecting moon.

Grissom got another message directly from the recon team, and it made him curse quietly. "Sergeant!"

**'~,_,~'**

Kushina flinched at the sudden voice resounding below her eardrums. "Yes Captain." She said clearly, transferring it over Skynet to her direct superior. The many nonhuman slaves that were either freed or being freed along with the fourteen batarians that surrendered looked at her funny.

_"What happened?"_ Captain Grissom did not sound happy. He probably already had a report from one of Shepard's subordinates, but wanted another one directly from her.

"I made a stupid mistake and ordered the ship too close. Most of my team got killed in either the crash or the resulting firefight." Kushina answered without hesitation. "I know that it is completely my fault and will probably get be removed from the army, or at least demoted. All that I ask is for that to wait until the mission is over and I have saved as many as I can."

_"..."_ The Captain was quiet for a moment. _"Very well."_ He sounded an odd combination of pleased and resigned. _"I will send in back up to assist. How much longer until you need evac?"_

She frowned. "There is still more floors to this base and I don't know how far they go." She looked around the room at the many injured and weary. "But there are already a lot that need to get out of here, either too young or badly injured. Most are not human though, so I don't know if we can help them." Shepard refused to let the lance of pain that surged through her show on her face. "We'll also need to carry out the dead." She did not care at all for the batarian corpses - they could rot for all she cared. But everyone else - even the turians - deserved rest.

_"We can try. Send them to the surface, I'll have a ship with food and medicine for those who need it to pick them up and drop more reinforcements off in five."_

"Much appreciated, sir."

_"Grissom out."_

The call ended and Shepard turned to regard the freed slaves, now numbering over a hundred. "If you want to leave, there will be a ship to take you out of here in five minuets on the surface. Just follow the path with the most carnage and you'll make it back to the entrance I came through." She said it as a half joke, half serious. "I would however, appreciate you being here if you can use a Taihou Se-, er, gun and are well enough to continue on." Some stayed, some left. Quiet a few had to be carried or supported as they retreated, being too injured or exhausted to do it one their own. Kushina moved over to Seryna, who was sitting on the ground. The asari had looked like shit before, now she looked even worse. Her right hard hung uselessly as dark blue blood oozed from a wound on her upper arm. Asari did not sweat, apparently, but her skin was looking a bad shade of turquoise and she was gasping for breath. "You need to go, too." Kushina said kindly, putting a hand on the alien's shoulder.

Seryna jumped at the contact and looked ready to protest. But seeing the concern in the human's cerulean eyes, she nodded and tried to stand up. When it became apparent she would not manage on her own, the - soon to be former - Sergeant helped her and then handed her off to a turian that was leaving as well.

"Thank you, Kushina, for everything." She smiled, which the Sergeant returned.

"You're welcome." After her new friend disappeared from the room, Kushina turned back the the kneeling batarians that surrendered. They had put down there weapons and currently had their hands behind their heads. Most of the freed slaves had their stolen rifles pointed at them, looking like they were barely holding back from shooting the unarmed batarians. Kushina took a long glance at the prisoners - loving the irony that the slaves and slavers had switched positions - before moving away to the corpse of the boss batarian.

Not even pausing, she yanked the destroyed sword from his chest cavity and turned back to the prisoners.

"Let me tell you something interesting." She said out loud, drawing all attention to her. The batarians looked terrified while the others looked tired but curious. "This sword here," She lifted the hunk of metal. "was a gift, and is well over five thousand years old." She looked sadly at it. "And now it's destroyed." The prisoners shifted uncomfortably at the hidden anger amplifying the strange effect her voice had on everyone. "But that's not really a problem, because it repairs itself. The only thing it needs is iron." She moved what was left of her blade so that it pointed downwards. Before everyone's eyes, the bright green blood that coated it began to flow down and sink into the metal. Soon enough, the blade began to _grow_ back until it reached about four feet in length, all the blood absorbed by then. "Though it seems there's not much iron in batarian blood." Kushina frowned at that. She looked at the still living batarians with anger and loathing blazing in her eyes. "Fortunately, there is a large supply of blood handy."

Within five minutes, Kushina's sword was fully repaired and the group moved deeper into the base, joined by the reinforcements that were trickling in.

**'~,_,~'**

By the end of the day, the moon had been completely cleared and the last of the human ships had taken off. Admiral Hackett stood in the bridge of the largest ship present - which was also the largest warship humans had made so far - the SSV _Pantagruel_. Even after reading that the moon was abandoned by all non-hostiles, he allowed a good five minutes just to be certain that no one was left behind. When no other ships left the surface besides the pirates' - which were quickly shot down - he ordered that all available ships fire their MAC weapons at the moon. Though the great weapons had to have a cool down of ten minutes between shots, and an additional three minutes to reload, with almost two hundred of them available it was no problem at the moment.

When the first round hit the moon, it caused the equivalent of a 7.5 earthquake. When the next three shells impacted almost simultaneously just afterwards, it blasted off a section of the moon that was large enough for a small continent. When the next one hundred and eighty-eight shells impacted simultaneously just after that from all directions, then large moon stood no chance.

Hackett watch impassively as Torfan broke apart, no visible reaction on his face to the countless people hiding within the moon that just died on his order - though it was probably a small number if the reports he was getting about Sergeant Shepard were anything to go by.

"Get all shuttles on board and all sick and injured treated." He ordered to all Captains. "Then, get us back to the nearest colonized system." It would only be a temporary stop, as they had to get all the nonhuman slaves to somewhere else. The Citadel probably.

**'~,_,~'**

Seryna watched, mesmerized by this latest act of human magic she had witnessed. The human man only had to hold his glowing hands up to her injured arms and the wound began to close at a rate that was practically regeneration.

"Thank you." She said as he finished. The human nodded and moved on to his next patient.

The asari found herself in a large cargo hold. It was crowded with smaller shuttles, freed slaves, and human doctors moving around and helping those they could. Seryna would admit that she, like many others, was curious about the tales of humans that sprung up twenty-one years ago. The new species was said to be small in number and use odd technology, but were very powerful. Many rumors about their magic had sprung up and dismissed as nonsense. But now that she and many others had seen humans in action, it could not denied anymore.

"Hey there!" Seryna jumped slightly at the sudden voice that caused her stomach to churn in a funky way. She turned and found it to be a smiling Kushina. "You look much better than the last time I saw you."

The asari could not help but smile back. "Your doctors are very good." Shepard nodded in agreement. "You know, you're the first human I've ever seen, and you're not what I expected."

"What were you expecting?"

"I thought you would be taller."

Kushina's eyebrow gained a dangerous twitch as she glared at the alien. "Shut. Up."

Seryna found that very funny.

After her laugher died down, the asari finally took in Kushina's appearance. The human had shed her damaged hard suit, instead wearing a loose blue sleeveless shirt and black long pants. She still had boots on, though they were much less heavy duty than the ceramic ones she wore before. Kushina's maroon hair fell to the bottom of her shoulder blades. Her tail was a lighter red, almost orange and had a blond-white tip. The furry appendage was very bushy and to many humans it looked a lot like that of a fox. Now up close, Seryna could tell that Kushina's eyes were not one set color. They started at bright blue around the edge of the iris and changed as they moved inwards until the slit of a pupil was surrounded by a ring of emerald green. Also with so much snowy flesh now shown, the extensive markings that glowed - though she did not believe that rumor until today - crawled over much of her body. It was also evident from up close that Kushina's canine teeth were nearly twice as long as her own, looking more like fangs than anything else.

The freed slave also noticed that Kushina was still carrying that large bloody cleaver sword. While surprised that it was fixed, Seryna was more curious as to why she still had it and voiced such.

"Ah, I'm looking for someplace quiet to clean it, but it seems like every square foot is someone's bed right now." Kushina answered, lazily turning the blade around with one hand to examine it.

"May I?" Seryna held out her hands with the offer. Kushina looked a little uncertain. "Is it a problem?"

"Kinda." The human looked uncertain. "It's a gift from my father and I haven't let go of it since he gave it to me almost six years ago. Sorry."

"It's okay." She said understandably. "You and your father must be close."

Kushina snorted. "That old bastard can go jump in a volcano for all I care." Seryna blinked at the sudden change in tone. "Okaa-chan would be pissed if she heard me say that, but its not like that would kill him." She looked at the blade and her expression lost all of its animosity, becoming almost soothing. "But I still love him, no matter how much of an asshole he is, and this is definitely the best present he ever gave me. I like to think that it's only mine so I don't let anyone else touch it. Sorry."

The asari smiled, thinking of her own father and their not dissimilar relationship... okay not _too_ dissimilar. Another thought occurred to her and Seryna frowned. "What are you... what is going to happen to me?"

Kushina gave her a calming smile, though it lost most its calming potential because of how she was twirling the giant sword in one hand. "We're almost to the Hong System, once we get there it's planned for all nonhumans to get onto the SSV _Pantagruel_, which will give you a ride to the Citadel. From there, it's all up to you."

The asari smiled. "That is more than what I expected to get. Thank you."

Kushina scratched at the back of her head and gave a sheepish laugh. "Don't worry. While we were mainly concerned with getting our own people out, we couldn't just leave you behind."

"Still, thank you."

The human smiled, but then jerked her head up and gained a far away look in her eyes. It lasted for only a second, but was enough to disconcert Seryna. "We'll be exiting Hyperspace in a minute, so we should be on Shanxi soon."

It took a few seconds for the name to register in the disturbed asari's mind. "Shanxi? As in the same planet the turians attacked?"

"Yep." Shepard said with a nod. "Let's get you to a shuttle."

Seryna was suddenly uncertain about stepping onto land that was previously a battlefield not to long ago.

**'~,_,~'**

It actually took much longer than expected to get the nonhumans to the Citadel. The first problem was that they could not just fly them all there on the _Pantagruel_ because they had no way of contacting the Citadel once there. And, as per the rules, any ship that does not make contact would be shot down. It was unlikely to matter much given the difference in size, but it would still not be good.

The second problem was that they could not contact the Citadel, _period_. The Systems Alliance had more or less chosen to ignore their counterpart and never bothered to even send an ambassador. If only a single human was on the Citadel they could be contacted through Skynet to talk to whoever was in charge of this type of thing. The problem? _There were no humans on the Citadel!_ No one wanted to go live there because - A: they could not bring any AI friends they have with them even on the ships and - B: They _still_ had no way to communicate with the Citadel to get there in the first place!

They could use an Omni-tool to contact the Citadel, but none of the slaves were allowed to keep theirs and all of the one belonging to the slavers were left on Torfan... which no longer existed. So they had absolutely no Omni-Tools to use.

Not even just sending a small envoy ship to warn the Citadel was an option because they _still had no way of contacting the Citadel_ and avoid getting shot down.

Summary: Clusterfuck.

So, the nonhumans spent a rather surreal month on Shanxi. In the beginning more than a few - especially any turians - were uncomfortable with the idea. This planet had faced the bad end of a full turian orbital bombardment not twenty years ago and humans were not a big enough species to fix a lone colony very fast. It would still be in shambles at best. A crater at worst.

... or not.

Everything was fine, perfect, unharmed. The only thing that marked that a war had ever touched here was was memorial in the main park made to honor those who died. It was thirteen feet of white crystal - damn near indestructible - and given the form of a saluting Ken Williams.

The colony had expanded from the sinlge city it was twenty years ago to a sprawling planet metropolis. But, in age-old human fashion that could be traced back to the Reaping War, there was arguably more green on the planet than metal.

Humans had always felt a strong connection with nature ever since the Izanagi Seed had become widespread. As such, every human was pretty much born a hippie.

All starships were required to posses a garden room, lest the crew or passengers go insane from being surrounded by cold metal for so long.

It was considered a sign of bad luck and corruption if a skyscraper did not have ivy growing up its sides. Inversely, any company that was stationed in a building with substantial amounts of ivy growing on it would be considered good and pure.

As Shanxi was just starting out when the First Contact War hit, the plants were not great enough to warrant attention from the turian invaders.

Now though...

The thousands of buildings around the planet had huge bushes atop them that branched out and made them look like giant trees with metal trunks covered in ivy. Roads were lined perfectly by an insane diversity of flowers. Huge plots of land were marked as not allowing construction to spread there, leaving them as great gardens. It would be impossible for the aliens to believe if they did not see it with their own eyes.

In complete opposite of the planet were the people who inhabited it.

Nearly hourly, any wandering alien would run into a fight between two or more humans. They would be violent and ruthless and break out in the middle of streets and stores. And in the end... the fighters and onlookers always left laughing together. More than once, well okay, more than a hundred times in the stay, a former enslaved krogan temporarily residing on Shanxi would join or start their own fights with humans. Everyone had great fun.

In even more complete opposite of the amazing botany and barbaric fighting was the technology.

By the time the aliens left, there were, to count, two thousand seven hundred and three videos and pictures of humorous reactions to the first time any alines laid eyes on various bits of human technology. The second most humorous of these were indisputably when they saw the SSV _Pantagruel_ in orbit - as it was too large to land planet side. The most humorous reactions were when they were flown close enough to see one of the two Halos in the system. Both of these could only be seen from shuttles flying through space close enough to get a look, but the former slaves were not seen as a threat and given plenty of freedom to fly about the system - though they were not allowed to leave the Hong System so as to contain them in roughly one area to make it easier to gather them up when it was time to leave.

One month on the strange, alien world, and the various asari, turians, krogans, and others began to feel like they must have entered some screwed up drug-induced dream.

When they had seen the cities of Shanxi, they were stunned.

When they saw the _Pantagruel_, they were amazed.

When they saw the Halos, they were astounded.

Then, one young asari asked the innocent enough question that should have been asked in the famous meeting with the Council twenty years ago - "How many humans are there?"

When they learned _that_, they were bloody terrified.

**'~,_,~'**

Seryna stared blankly at her redhead friend. The cup of the glorious human beverage - coffee it was called - nearly slipped from her suddenly clammy fingers.

There was an awkward pause as Kushina returned her stare with a confused one. "What are you looking at me like that for?"

"H-H-H-H-" The asari swallowed. "How?"

The hanyo misinterpreted the question. "Well there was a census over Skynet a month or so ago, and those only take a few hours so it should be pretty accurate still."

The asari got her shaking under control. "N-No, I mean how could there be s-so many of y-you?"

Kushina tilted her head to the side in confusion. "Is that a lot?"

"YES!" Her shout attracted the attention of the many others in the café, but she was too preoccupied to notice. "Humans should have run out of space and overpopulated at some point! There should have been no way you could have reached a population of t-two-... two-" She could not even bring herself to _say_ it!

The human scratched the back of her head, uncomfortable with her shouting and many curious stares. "Well, no, not really. The biggest population boom we had was after we achieved space travel and after that we never slowed down in either endeavors. No wars, and kept on exploring and colonizing." She shrugged. "They put a law in place three thousand years ago that made it illegal to have more that three kids, but that's it."

Seryna gaped. "When did you get space flight?"

"0969." Was the immediate response.

"And what year is it now for your people? like one thousand-something?" The asari's stomach dropped even further than it already was when her friend shook her head.

"5178."

"F-Fif- fifty-" She could not say _that_ number either.

"We've had Hyperspace since the 14' hundreds."

Seryna opened her mouth, but nothing came out, so she closed it, and then fainted.

**'~,_,~'**

The answer to contacting the Citadel came - ironically enough - in the form of another batarian raid on a distant colony. This one, however, was much better guarded and the military personnel shot down the ships with large smiles on their faces. They just so happened to recover an Omni-Tool from the wreckage.

**'~,_,~'**

The fact that the humans recovered a few hundred slaves from batarian raiders was a secret on the Citadel, only known by the officers of C-Sec that would help in the relief effort.

As such, everyone knew about.

_"I'm here reporting from the dock 37."_ The reporter said. Benezia could have sworn it was the same asari maiden from three months prior who tried to interview her. Probably was, she was a favorite. _"We received a report that the human ships carrying the slaves they saved from Torfan is about to arrive."_

Behind the reporter, it was easy to see a large crowd containing all the Council species talking loudly. Some were crying - relief from family and friends possibly returning - and some were looking excited - probably because they wanted to see a human finally.

Councilor Tevos frowned, standing next to Benezia in her office, watching the proceedings from the television mounted on her wall. "But what did they do with the blasted moon?" She muttered. Much like Omega and Aria, Torfan and its leading batarian - whose name she could never remember - had been a thorn in her side for a long time. Patrolling turians discovered a little under a month ago that Torfan had disappeared! While the message she saw yesterday explained who attacked it, it did not say what they did with the planetoid itself.

"If you spend any amount of time with humans you learn not to question them too much. It'll only give you headaches." Benezia stated in a tone that proved she was not joking.

"Don't I know it." She rubbed her temple to dispel the phantom mental pains from the first and only conversation she ever had humans.

In the news report, a small blip appeared in the background. It was quickly noticed by the crowd and the young reporter. _"Ah, I think that's them coming in now. It definitely looks strange enough from this distance."_ She joked and a few people around her laughed, Tevos allowed her lip to twitch.

The many rumors about humans had dissolved to something very different. They were now seen by most as funny looking brutes who built funny looking ships and used funny looking weapons. Their 'magic' had somehow been degraded into saying that they liked getting high at every available opportunity. Benezia was not amused by the reporter's joke in the slightest.

The Council had received the message and agreed to temporarily relieved the ban on no AIs allowed in Council space so that the humans would fly here. In return, the humans were only allowed to drop off any slaves they saved and then leave. They were not allowed to set foot on the Citadel. As such, Tevos was not worried as the dark spot in the background got closer and larger. She did frown when she realized that it was only one ship. She thought the message said that a few hundred slaves had been freed - wouldn't they be cramp in one ship? Oh right, they did not have Mass Effect cores and could have their ships be as large as they wanted.

So, she did not worry as the distant ship got closer and larger.

And larger...

And larger...

And larger...

... Okay now she was worried, but only a little bit.

... And larger...

And larger...

Those who were cheering in the crowd at the docks quieted and the reporter's joking smile began to lower.

And larger.

And larger.

And larger.

Tevos did not even register it when she slipped from where she was leaning against her desk and fell to the floor.

Benezia - who had been inside of a human ship - handled it with much more grace and dignity. She did not show a single reaction.

And larger.

And larger.

And larger.

The Matriarch made a choking sound and joined her fellow asari on the floor.

The reporter dropped her microphone.

An unfortunate volus in the crowd had a heart attack.

And larger.

And larger

And... it stopped.

"By the Goddess." Tevos gasped out, both hands going to cover her mouth. Benezia looked like she was choking on something.

The cameras were pointed straight up to get what they could of the human ship. As it was _much_ too large to fit into the Citadel docks, it was floating almost like it was orbiting the Prothean structure.

Actually... it would probably be more accurate to say that the Citadel was orbiting the human ship...

To this day, the SSV _Noah's Ark_ remained the largest ship humans had ever built. The largest _battleship_ they ever built was without a doubt the SSV _Pantagruel_. She was not as large as the _Noah's Ark_, but that would be difficult to do and keep it working properly when the large weapons were added. So, the _Pantagruel_ was not as large as the _Noah's Ark_ famous 500 kilometer length.

It was still fucking _huge_ though.

When measured in full, the _War Fleet's_ head ship stretched a full three hundred and twenty kilometers.

The Citadel was only forty-four kilometers in length and weighed just over seven billion metric tons.

_What the hell did the _Pantagruel_ weigh?!_

The impossibly large mass of black overhead eclipsed the sky and was dotted with trillions of lights. For a brief second, Tevos was certain she was just staring into the night sky - it was a much more realistic than reality. From openings far too small to see from this distance, smaller shuttles were released that descended onto the Citadel. Within minutes, they had unloaded the former slaves - who did not seem worried in the least about the monstrous ship overhead.

No human had set foot on the Citadel that day, and they left shortly after arriving. The bizarre mix on the docks of former slaves who were already somewhat used to the human technology and everyone else who seemed to but rendered mute, only made Tevos think, no, _wish_ that this was all a dream.

"I told you so." Benezia croaked out before she decided now would be a good time to nap on the hard office floor.

**'~,_,~'**

Far away in the Harsa System, a much smaller human starship floated through space. In the main room with mirrors for floor tiles and an entire wall made into a window that viewed the vacuum of space, there were two things. The first... was a chair. Just a normal chair. The second was a man.

The human's only visible demonic trait was that his ice blue eyes glowed brightly in the dark room. He was middle aged and wore a perfectly clean suit and matching pants. His brown hair was starting to go gray, a sign that a human had entered middle age of their late 400's, early 500's. He sat comfortably in the chair with one leg over the other and a smoking cigaret in his hand.

His glowing eyes gazed out the large window at the planet below. It was of decent size, with an atmosphere that held shades of murky green, poisonous purple, and dying gray. There were quiet a few ships coming and leaving, though most seemed to prefer moving on the dark side of the planet.

_"It's ready."_ A voice said to the man from below his eardrums.

"Good." He said in return, taking a drag of his cigaret. "Is there a single chance at failure?" The project had been rushed towards the end, so it was best to check.

_"No sir. It will work perfectly."_

He closed his eyes and took another drag. Just one more calm moment before the storm.

"Then do it."

_"Yes sir."_

From his seat, the man had a perfect view as a bright green light could be seen coming from somewhere below his giant window. Mere moments later, the light shot forward in a beam of blinding energy and hit the planet below, dead center. The beam only lasted two seconds at most before it stopped.

Now to wait.

Though not for long.

At the two minute mark, the disgusting green, purple, and gray atmosphere began to show a tint of red.

At the five minute mark after firing, the atmosphere had been completely bathed crimson and ships began to try and leave the planet in a paniced fashion. They would not be fast enough.

Seven minutes now. The clouds had been cast away and showed a crater on the planet surface that was visible from his chair. The crater began to get wider and deeper at an alarming rate, like the whole planet was caving in.

Nine minutes. The whole planet shrunk like it suddenly compressed, easily reducing its radius by a few hundred kilometers.

Ten minutes. It was over.

The now red planet exploded outwards. Most of the ships that had tried to flee were caught by the debris and destroyed. Those that were not hit did not last long as what was once the planet's core glowed a bright green before the light and color were sucked into black nothingness.

A black hole.

The planetary debris and any ships that were too close were sucked into sweet oblivion. The dense mass that not even light could escape only lasted a handful of seconds before if collapsed - eating itself.

The man in the chair took a final drag of his cigaret and then flicked his finger to burn the rest of it into ashes in a gout of flames.

Ten minutes ago, there was Khar'shan.

Ten minutes ago, there was the batarian home world.

Ten minutes ago, there was a civilization with billions of men, women, and children.

Now there was nothing.

_"Leaving the system now, sir."_ The person did not even bother to mention that the weapon was a complete success, as that was obvious to the man.

He fixed his glowing eyes on the vacant space that contained a planet not too long ago before standing from his chair and walking out of the room with his hands in his pockets.

"That's what you get for kidnapping humans."

* * *

**I will say this once and I will say it again - my weird version of humanity are the badasses of the galaxy. Emphases on BADASS!**

**We also get our first look at a fully colonized human planet. I like to think it's original and tried not to take anything off from anything else, but for all I know I perfectly described some random movie I've never seen before.**

**HOORAY FOR HIPPIES!**

**Explanation time!**

**MAC rounds... nope, totally didn't plagiarize those. I had an original idea that was completely different but then after looking it over I slapped myself for the stupidity of it and went with these.**

**I couldn't think of any situation where Shepard would have to order her troops to death like in the canon Battle of Torfan when they could go all ninja on their asses. So this is what I came up with.**

**Yes someone used Ice Release. I'm of firm belief that after 5k years, all those 'extinct' bloodlines and more would probably pop back up. And no, do not expect everyone to start running around with the Rinnegan, even I won't do that... probably.**

**Yay Seryna! Not an OC (I suck at those) and definitely one of my favorite characters... though I don't really know why now that I think about it.**

**The batarian leader guy thought they were just slaves because none of them knew another ship had landed, er, tried to land. Communication isn't real big on Torfan.**

**Humans are _big_. I mean, like, there's a _lot_ of them. Total number coming out next chapter, all you know is that it starts with 2. Feel free to guess.**

**The measurement and weight I put down for the Citadel are completely ****accurate. Got them straight off of Mass Effect Wiki... actually that might mean they're not actually that accurate, but whatever!**

**Until next time,  
_ - - Sorcerer of the East_**


	6. The First Ninja

**How I managed to get this out, I'll never know. My week has been terrible and it's only getting worse, but anyone who bothers to read this probably won't care that much.**

**To those who took part in the 67 reviews left for little old me, thank you so much. The only way they could be better is if two more reviews were posted so I could make some terribly corny 69 joke.**

**But finally! I got to starting the actual ME storyline!... and now I have a problem. Let me back up and say that I had planned on taking time to write the next two or three chapters and post them this week with little breaks between, but that didn't work out so well. I like how this chapter went, but what have managed to write for the next one I hate. I think the reason is because it's been like a year since I've played Mass Effect 1, I don't even know if I have the game anymore! So, I'm a little rusty on some of the story points, like the very beginning. So I ask you, my loyal readers for help. If you remember anything that I might be able to fit into this story that happened between the Eden Prime beacon exploding to the Ilos mission, major or small doesn't matter, please tell me. You'll probably be much more accurate than than ME wiki and I really don't have enough time to play through the game myself if I want to finish the next chapter in a timely ****fashion while still working.**

**I will try, I really will, to get the next chapter finished by next Sunday (not tomorrow but in a week). But, as it is, it's not looking good.**

**Posted: 1/20/2012  
Word Count: 10,686 (Only 10 words away from a corny 69 joke! Why can't I ever get it?!)  
Brief Summary: Wrap up of pre-ME storyline & Eden Prime.**

**Hope you enjoy.**

* * *

**Chapter 6**

**The First Ninja**

* * *

"Sergeant Kushina Shepard of the Systems Alliance Army." Admiral Steven Hackett said in a clear voice that was easily all over the small court room. "You are here by discharged and relieved from active duty." In one smooth motion, the taller man reached across the distance between them and swiped the badge off her uniform.

Kushina stood with the almost stereotypical military blank face. Her arms were behind her back and she met the Admiral's stare unblinkingly - though she did have to look up at him. This meeting was more of a formality than anything else. She already knew that she had been relieved of duty, but they could only have this meeting now since all the nonhuman squatters were finally dealt with and returned to the Citadel.

She already knew she was no longer a Sergeant, but it still hurt a little when the badge was ripped off.

"Dismissed." The Admiral stated after taking her standard issue Taihou Seal gloves from her belt as well.

Kushina gave a sharp salute, did an about face, and left the room with her head held high.

**'~,_,~'**

Tevos sat so still she could almost be mistaken for a statue. She was at her desk with her head in her hands and eyes closed, taking deep breaths. Benezia had left not too long ago, muttering something about a bar. Personally, Tevos would very much like to curl up with a nice bottle right now, but she still had work to do and refused to drink on the job. Especially with this thing about the batarian home world...

There was a beep indicating that someone was at the door. "Come in." She did not even bother to look up until the door automatically opened and closed. Not recognizing the asari, she kept her face neutral. "How may I help you?"

"I, uh, have something for you, Councilor." It was painfully obvious that the visitor was not accustomed to speaking with people in authority by the way she twitched and would not make eye contact. She fumbled for a bit with a holopad before handing it out to Tevos.

The Councilor arched an eye ridge but took the holopad. It had quiet a bit of text and even a few diagrams scattered about in an unorganized fasion. "What is this?" She asked without looking up.

"That is all of the information me and the other former s-slaves could get from the humans in our time with them." Now Tevos looked up, surprised. "They were very friendly and willing to talk. I felt that you had a right to know what we found out, and they probably won't mind."

Tevos nodded in appreciation. Maybe this could shine some light on the relatively new and very strange race that nearly gave her a heart attack not twenty four hours ago. "Thank you." It was obvious - well to her anyway - that the words were a dismissal. If the visitor caught that, then she ignored them.

"Can I point out one thing though?" Tevos looked up sharply, not showing any of her surprise that the other asari was still here. After a moment of thinking, she nodded. "See that number at the top?" The Councilor glanced down to see the number '2,011' at the top right corner of the holopad. "I was personally told that number was accurate as of a month or so ago."

Tevos frowned. "What is it for?"

"The human population."

Tevos blinked and scrutinized the number. That was an insanely low population, much lower than she expected. How could they even survive with such a low population? It was now quiet possible that Tevos' theory that the majority of humans lived on that... that... _monster _of a ship and did not actually have a home planet - much like the quarians - was viable. "I expected it to be bigger." She muttered. Even the species with the lowest population that could be counted - meaning the vorcha and hanar were out - the drell had a population of about three hundred million. Considering their home planet was made uninhabitable not too long ago and now they were little more than indentured servants to the hanar, it was impressive that it was that high.

"What?" The visitor seemed startled by her muttered words. The other asari glanced down at the holopad and read it upside down. "Ah, no ma'am. Scroll right."

Tevos slid her finger over the display and moved the information to the side slightly to reveal that the next three digits - 932 - had been cut off. "Well, that's a little better." Though humans were still pretty far behind all the other known species.

"Ma'am." Tevos looked back up at the guest, who was shifting in obvious discomfort. "Scroll right."

Tevos did so again, revealing that it was _still_ cut off. The next three digits - 401 - blew her theory of them all living in _that_ ship out of the water. Not even a ship of that size could hold two billion people.

Now two billion was a decent number, but not one she felt she needed to worry about. The most populated species in the galaxy were the asari, with an estimated 47 billion living and closely followed by the turians with 41 billion.

"Ma'am." Tevos felt a stone set in her stomach when she heard that harmless word again. _No. Just, no. It's not possible!_ "Scroll right."

Obediently, she used a shaky finger to move the data and show the next and _last_ - she checked - digits of number had been cut off as well. The '687' seemed to glare back at her, laughing. A sharp shiver ran up Tevos' spine at seeing the _thirteen_ digit number. Now more than ever, Tevos was really starting to live by Benezia's words that they could not afford to become enemies to the humans.

"I need a drink." The Councilor croaked out.

**'~,_,~'**

"Don't worry sweetie." Hannah Shepard said as she sat next to her daughter on a bench at the edge of a large garden on Shanxi. "It was a mistake, but you need to get over it."

Kushina snorted, not looking up from the drink she was nursing. "I'm the first person in like four thousand years to be kicked out of the military and I'm not supposed to feel sorry for myself?"

"Three thousand, eight hundred, and twenty-five years to be exact." Hannah replied without thinking.

Kushina stared at the older redhead with a deadpan expression. "Yes, thank you dear mother for telling me exactly how big of a failure I am when I could have looked it up on my own had I wanted to."

The former Police Commissioner flinched. "Sorry. My mouth usually moves before my brain tells it too."

"At least I know which side of the family I got that from, then." Kushina grumbled.

"Do you know how hard it is to find you two?" Mother and daughter looked up to see a dark skinned average human stop within walking distance. His navy blue uniform was spotless and his face was blank of all emotion - definitely a military man. He looked like a near perfect officer.

"David!"

And the image was ruined when Hannah jumped from the bench and trapped the man in a bear hug.

"A-Ah, yes, hello to you too, Hannah. It's good to see you again." He tentatively returned the hug before she pulled back.

"It's been far too long since we last spoke. Here, let me introduce you to my daughter." Hannah smiled and gestured to the younger redhead on the bench. The two women had the same ruby red hair and round face. While the family resemblance was unmistakeable, David had a very difficult time believing their relationship with Kushina looking up at him an almost impossibly innocent expression filled with wonder and amazement. The only time he could even hope to see something similar on Hannah's face was if she was really drunk.

"A-Are y-you." The youngest present made a show of swallowing hard. "Are y-you really my f-father?"

David recoiled from the claim and fell into a stuttering mess. "W-Wha- but? No! I-I mean, t-that is, well-" He stopped when Hannah - her cheeks dusted slightly red - slapped her daughter on the back of the head. Hard.

"Aye! What the hell was that for?" Kushina snapped back at her mother. The look of childish innocence was gone and replaced with annoyance that showed a fiery temper was being barely held back. _Now_, David could say without a doubt that they were mother and daughter.

"Will you stop being so childish for one minute?" Evidently, Hannah's own temper was nearing the surface as well.

"But it was funny!" That comment got another slap on the back of the head. "Stop hitting me!" Kushina jumped to her feet, her drink cast away and forgotten.

"Stop being such a child!" Hannah threw another slap at her daughter but she ducked under it and countered. The former Commissioner's head moved to the side slightly and her cheek stung fro the strike. She gaped at her daughter before it dissolved into a glare. Equal growls of anger rose from both women's throats and their tails whipped back and forth in a threatening manner.

"Ladies, please keep-" David stopped when the two snapped to glare at him with such great ferocity that he was afraid that he would melt.

The corner of Kushina's lips twitched.

David's rising fear abruptly disappeared and he groaned. "You've got to be kidding me."

Mother and daughter burst into almost identical laughter, having to support each other lest they fall down from their spontaneous prank's success. "You should have seen the look on your face!" Kushina managed to get out between laughs. Just to spite him, Hannah a message over Skynet to David that _was_ a picture of his face that she had just taken. Just afterwards, Kushina sent her own pic of his face, only this one was taken right after she asked if he was her father. Anderson's eye twitched. He looked like an idiot.

Their laughter lasted a good five minutes before they calmed down enough that David felt like he was safe to converse with them. "Well, it's good to meet you Kushina. I am Captain David Anderson of the Systems Alliance Navy." Even though she was now relieved of duty, Kushina still stood at attention when he started talking seriously - though her stance was slouched a bit.

"What can I do ya for, sir?" Though, she was definitely adapting to civilian life just fine if that was how she talked to him. Plus that smile of hers made him worried he was about to get pranked again.

"I'm here to offer you two things." He began. "One of them is a position as Lieutenant Commander on my ship."

Kushina was obviously not expecting that if the widening of her eyes was anything to go by. She scowled at him. "I don't know what you're playing at, sir, but I was just fired from the military an hour ago."

"You were fired from the _Army_." He corrected.

"Does that make a difference?" Kushina meant it to be rhetorical, but after a quick check with Skynet she realized that she did not actually know the answer.

"No, not usually." Anderson admitted. "But when taking into consideration the reason you were discharged-"

"You mean personally slaughtering my entire team and dozens of _batarians_?" Kushina cut in with an even bigger scowl, growling out the last word. That was what she was famous for right now. The _'Butcher of Torfan'_ they called her. Few really cared one way or the other about her being disbanded, as they were far more interested in her personally mass murdering six entire bases of four-eyed aliens, even if they surrendered or even begged for mercy. Those bastard had it coming and she did not regret any of it. But her team... that still hurt.

That being said, she blamed the nickname on the giant sword she used and - by extension - her father.

"I mean, saving _hundreds_ of lives." Anderson said quickly. Hannah gave him a grateful smile. "An idea was brought to the Kages to let you join the Navy instead. It would be a shame for talent like yours to go to waste."

Kushina snorted, another thing she inherited from her mother. "Who was the dumbass that pitched that idea?"

The Captain fixed her with a deadpan expression. "Me." Kushina blushed in embarrassment and quickly muttered a 'sorry'. "And they agreed to let you into the Navy." The two women looked surprised. "... in five years." That surprise turned incredulous.

"Huh?" Mother and daughter echoed together.

"Well they have to give you some kind of punishment." He said with a shrug. "And by then the new prototype ship that I'm supposed to captain should be finalized."

"And what am I supposed to do for five years?" It looked like Kushina's temper was beginning to rise up again, if only slightly. "And what if I get a better job and don't want to join?"

Anderson gave her a small smile. "And that's the second thing I want to offer you." Kushina leaned back and crossed her arms in an obvious 'I am waiting' posture. "The Systems Alliance is sponsoring a new training program - the Shinobi Corps." A pair of blinks. "It is designed to be living hell and it's estimated that the dropout rate will be something around ninety percent. But anyone who makes it out in one piece will be tougher than the armor they wear. It's a make or break deal and is only going to be offered to the top soldiers we have." By now Kushina was giving a toothy smile. "_You_ are to be the first recruit, if you want to be that is. And, if you pass, you will be one of the first Kunoichi we've had in a _long_ time."

Hannah put a hand on Kushina's shoulder. When their eyes met, she gave her daughter a smile and encouraging nod. The younger woman turned back to Anderson with a determined look.

"Where to I sign up?"

**'~,_,~'**

_November 2, 5178 AU: The Shinobi Corps Training School began for the over three thousand individuals who joined._

_January 3, 5179 AU: That large number had already been reduced to below eight hundred._

_There were seven levels or ranks to the SC. The first that everyone started at was 'Recruit'. But just because it was the first, does not mean it was easy. To graduate from SC1, Recruit, there were a series of challenges and tests. The first to graduate to the second level - 'Genin' - was Kushina Shepard, and it took her five months. To this day, the second fastest record to graduate from SC1 is nine months._

**Record of Kushina Shepard:**

**- Five months as a SC1, Recruit.**  
**- Eight months as a SC2, Genin**  
**- Six months as a SC3, Chunin**  
**- Ten months as SC4, Tokubetsu Jonin**  
**- Nine months as SC5, Jonin**  
**- One year as SC6, ANBU**

**Graduated SC Training School on February 25, 5183 AU.**

**Awarded rank of SC7, Kunoichi.**

**'~,_,~'**

**Codex Update**

Shinobi Corps (SC) Training School: The long, arduous modern day process to be awarded position of fully fledged ninja. It was estimated to take nearly eight years for a recruit to pass through all levels. So far, the first and only person to graduate - Kushina Shepard - shattered this estimate. She did in five years.

Shinobi/Kunoichi: Title of a true ninja. Depends of person's sex for differentiation. It is the only rank in the Shinobi Corps that is allowed to be displayed on military armor. Upon achieving the rank, the person who did so receives a headband - inspired by the ones worn during the Fourth Great Shinobi War - to show their rank.

**'~,_,~'**

The sleek, almost alien like frame of the ship was very different from the others in the bay. It was unlike any human military vessel out there, but reminded her greatly of the racing ships that were popular in some circles.

Taking in the sight of ship was a hanyo woman who had not even reached the age of thirty, making her very young for her species. Some humans her age went to school, others travelled, but few went into the military like she did.

Her custom made hard suit was jet black with navy blue trim. It pressed against her body in every place and felt more comfortable than almost any other outfit she had ever worn - though that was probably because she spent so much time in it. That does not mean she would ever sleep in the armor if she could help it, it was not _that_ comfortable. The only skin it left showing was her head and fox-like tail. The dark lines of her Izanami Seal could be seen along her neck and face, only interrupted by a faint scar that went from her right temple to her chin. Her crimson hair was cut to just below her chin and was held back from her eyes by the black headband with a metal plate tied snuggly around her forehead. On the collar of her armor, in bold print was the SC7 emblem. Her blue eyes shined with excitement and a toothy smile formed on her lips.

The name that ran the length of the frigate just confirmed what she already knew. "So this is the _Normandy_?" She whispered to herself. She was answered.

"That's right."

"Gah!" She whipped around at the voice behind her.

"Wha- Ack!" The other person began spitting off to the side as her spin sent her tail directly into his mouth. "Watch where you swing that thing!"

"Sorry." She apologized lamely, idly whipping her precious tail of any saliva that might have gotten onto it. The average human before her shivered slightly for some reason when he heard her speak.

"S'okay." He said, whipping off his mouth before smiling. "Not like you broke anything, surprisingly enough." She smiled at his odd joke. "Whacha looking at my girl for?"

The redhead blinked. "Your girl?" She asked in confusion.

"The _Normandy_." He gestured to the ship with one hand. "She's my ship."

"I thought it belonged to Captain Anderson." The hanyo said with a frown.

"She does." She was quiet happy that she did not freak out this time at the new voice. "Flight Lieutenant Moreau here is her pilot." They both turned to the dark skinned average human in a Navy Blue uniform.

The redhead gave a salute. "Reporting for duty, Captain Anderson."

He nodded. "At ease, soldier." They shook hands with a smile each. "It's a pleasure to see you again, _Lieutenant Commander_."

"Likewise, sir."

"So you're the new meat the Captain was talking about." The pilot said, holding out his own hand. "Jeff Moreau, but everyone just calls me Joker."

She took the hand firmly, noting a small wince from the man as she did so and eased up slightly. "Kushina Shepard." His eyes nearly bugged out of his head. "_Yes_." She hissed in before he could ask the question she knew was coming, her eye twitching slightly. "_That_ Kushina Shepard."

"Sorry." He amended sheepishly. "But, wow. I thought the headband and insignia were just props." Her eye twitched again. "I thought you would be taller too." She suddenly felt the urge to wrap her fingers around his little throat and squeeze. "Hope you enjoy your time on the _Normandy_. If nothing else, I can promise that the pilot will be fun to talk to."

Kushina gave a smirk in an effort to hide her frustration at the man. "We'll see about that."

"Let's board up." Anderson said, moving to the docking port. "We take off in five."

The three humans entered through the airlock. As they were the last to board, the ship began to pressurize when the automatic door closed behind them. Kushina took a look around what she knew was the pilot room to the left and the Command Information Center to the right. She had never spent any extended amount of time in a starship before, but as of now this was her new home. It would take a while to get used to, however at the moment she liked what she saw.

The SSV _Normandy_ Stealth Reconnaissance was the first of its kind, and she was proud to say that it was inspired in part by her. As part of the recon team on Torfan, she knew how difficult it was to sneak onto the slaver moon unnoticed. This ship was the first designed and built by humans to sneak around a wall instead of blowing through it. Embrace your inner ninja, right?

It was small for a military frigate, only 285 meters from tip to thrusters. It was more aerodynamic, based off of the leading design for racing ships. This meant that in place of more space and slightly sturdier frame, the _Normandy_ could enter and exit atmosphere with so little resistance that it was almost impossible to notice.

However, the newest and most experimental part of the ship that took almost all five years to built was the carefully constructed sealing array that lined the underside of the metal armor plating and think fiberglass layer. When activated, it would project what one side of the ship was seeing on the opposite side in such a way that the entire ship would be completely invisible to the naked eye.

It was new, expensive, dangerous, and the most badass thing she had ever seen.

"Pulling away from dock." A charming synthetic voice said to Kushina's right. It was echoed beneath her eardrums as it was relayed over Skynet as well. With a start, the redhead realized that Anderson and Joker had left her there to go do their own jobs. It was not hard to find the captain as he stood one a raised podium overlooking the CIC and the large holographic map of the galaxy in the center of it. "Moving to Hyperspace distance." This time, Kushina saw that the announcement came from an AI stationed on a elevated stand on the nearest side of the galaxy map. "Ready to jump, Mr. Moreau."

"Yeah, yeah, I got it." Joker said from his seat at the front. "Jumping in three, two, one." The ship lurched and the stars outside the window stretched as the _Normandy_ left its home dimension.

"Entrance Jump successful." The AI said, before moving on to work on something else.

"Where're we headed, Captain?" Kushina asked as she came up behind Anderson as he stared down at the galaxy map.

"The Serpent Nebula." He swiped a seal on the side of the podium he was standing on and the large holographic map zoomed in to the area. "We're to pick up a group of researchers from the Citadel and show them some Prothean museums."

**'~,_,~'**

Human-alien relations had not changed much in the five years Kushina had spent at training. Humans still felt no real need to interact with the other galactic species. That combined with their various rules - especially the one against AIs - kept the human population in nonhuman systems to almost nonexistent level. So far, only one person that she knew of had a permanent resident in alien territory, and that was because he was an ambassador on the Citadel.

On the other side, no aliens lived on human territory either. There were a few who wanted to for various reasons, but no one knew where any humans were. The only human territory known was the Hong System, and the Turian Hierarchy was very adamant about holding back anyone who wanted to go through the Mass Relay to get there. They claimed that there was too large of a possibility that someone would do something stupid and start another war with the humans.

The Systems Alliance learned from the long month where they could not contact the Council when they need to and have since engineered a ship-to-ship communicator from the savaged Omni-Tool and added one to every ship they could. The communications have not been used much, but they were there just incase.

Still, neither the Council nor the Systems Alliance wanted war and tried on many occasions to strengthen positive relations between their citizens. Electing a human ambassador was one such move. Escorting these researchers was another.

_"The _Normandy_ is clear to dock in bay 422."_ The voice said over the speakers on the AIs terminal. Only it was not the AI talking but rather the person on the other side of the communications speaking. The reason it was hooked to the AI's speakers was because they were the only ones in the entire ship.

The almost brand new frigate glided towards the indicated dock. Technically, just by being in the the Serpent Nebula, they were breaking the law since they had an AI on board. However, the _Normandy_ was given a pass (officially) as a sign of trust by the Council and (unofficially) because the Council had realized by now that if the humans wanted to bring an AI then there was nothing they could do to stop them.

The whole point of the current exercise was to take a group of alien experts in Prothean technology to various museums that humans had made to house the many ancient artifacts they had found. These researchers were free to study the artifacts and bring any findings back to their superiors. The idea was proposed by the Systems Alliance, yet they gained nothing from it. On the other hand, the Council could possibly get a big enough technological jump to put them ahead who-knows-how-many decades. It was too good of an opportunity to pass up.

The Captain was heading the small landing party consisting of Kushina and the _Normandy's_ Staff Sergeant, Kaidan Alenko. As expected, the many Citadel occupants looked up when the humans being escorted by a salarian Spectre passed by. Most continued to stare.

When the small party finally reached the appointed door, it opened to reveal a smiling asari. "It's good to see you again, Captain." She said in a relieved voice. She had half expected/feared that they would arrive in a gigantic ship again, but instead they came in a good sized frigate that could almost be mistaken for a council species' ship.

"Councilor Tevos." Anderson returned with a polite nod. "You're looking good." It was more of an assumption on his part considering he did not know exactly what an asari looked like when they were ill.

"Thank you." She returned the nod and looked at the Captain's associates - pausing slightly at Kushina - before gesturing to the other occupants of the room. "These are the leading experts on Prothean technology and history that have volunteered for this outing."

"You said that there would be nine." Kaiden spoke up. "I count ten." His eyes zeroed in on one turian in particular who did not look like a peaceful researcher. Shepard and Anderson followed his gaze, the former having a small growl build up in her throat.

"Ah, yes." Tevos waved over the turian in black and red armor with more than a few guns visible. "This is Nihlus Kryik, one of our most decorated Council Spectres."

"A pleasure." He said with a nod at Anderson. They were actually about the same height.

"He has been assigned as security and an additional observer." Tevos continued, meeting Captain Anderson's suspicious gaze without flinching.

"Are you suggesting that our own security methods are unreliable?" His tone was genial enough, but it was obvious things could get messy if he was given the wrong answer.

"Not at all." Nihlus was the one to answer. "But it was unanimously agreed that it might become... stressful for our research team should they be constantly surrounded by armed individuals of a species that they know very little about. It is our hopes that with me being there, they can stay calm and do their work to the best of their abilities." Kushina's growl stopped part way through his small monologue.

The Captain gave the turian one last searching gaze, glanced at the still smiling Tevos, and nodded. "Very well. You have an hour to get your things onto the _Normandy_, we leave after that." He glanced at the now nervous research team, a few of which flinched back. "That goes for all of you too." He turned and left the room, followed by his team, the Spectre, and finally the experts.

"If I may, Captain." Anderson frowned as Nihlus spoke up, but did not silence him. "Where will we be going exactly?"

"We have dozens of Prothean museums around our territory." Now most of the researchers seemed very rapt in listening. "But those will come later. The day before yesterday, an excavation team found an artifact that they could not identify - some kind of beacon. We figured that your people would be more interested in that so we're going there first." He glanced over his shoulder at the experts following obediently behind. They should have gone to pick up their supplies, but obviously they were more interested in what the Captain had to say and were putting that off.

"And where is this beacon?" Nihlus politely reiterated his question.

"Utopia System, Eden Prime."

Unnoticed by them, another turian they had passed froze when Anderson mention the beacon. With one last murderous glare at the retreating humans, he turned the corner and sprinted for the docks. The planet name meant nothing to him, but from the language exchange years prior, the humans and asari each gave the names they had for various systems. He knew where the Utopia System was.

**'~,_,~'**

The newly minted Lieutenant Commander was bored. She leaned against the hull of the _Normandy_, next to the airlock. Despite the Captain's warning about leaving after an hour, here they were _three_ hours later, still waiting. One of the 'experts' had yet to come back from getting all of their things ready, and Anderson was too nice of a guy to leave them behind. He even assigned a crew member to wait outside the airlock for the last member of the research team.

Kushina was just annoyed that he chose her. _Butcher of Torfan and SC7 Kunoichi, turned into a fucking bellhop! Really?!_

In her annoyed state of mind, she took a sick kind of pleasure in glaring at anyone who looked at her and then watching their reactions. The various reporters were the funniest, easily. In close second was that klutzy asari who was dragging a rather large case through the docks - her tired and sweaty form was fun to watch as she kept tripping and running into things. She even tipped her large case over, spilling everything out of it. Kushina would have laughed - quietly at least - but it was right then that she remembered another asari that looked remarkably similar to her in Tevos' office earlier...

"And of course she's the one we've been waiting on." The redhead muttered darkly as she pushed off the hull and moved over to the crouching asari who was frantically trying to pick up all of her dropped nicknacks. "You _are_ the one we've been waiting for, right?"

The asari jumped slightly and gave a small _eep_. "A-Ah, I, what?"

Kushina stared down at her, exasperation building. "You are the last... _expert_ that we've been waiting the last three hours for, right?" She failed to see how this easily intimidated blue girl - monogender, whatever - could possibly be an expert in anything.

"Yes! I mean, that is, I'm sorry for the wait." The alien refused to meet her gaze and the previous robin egg blue skin of her cheeks turned a deep purple.

Kushina sighed, her anger leaving her. It was so difficult to be angry at shy people like this. "Alright, lets get you cleaned up." Kneeling down, she began picking up the scattered doodads and placed them back in the case.

"T-Thank you." The asari said as she helped put away her things. "I am sorry for being so late. The taxi driver I hired misunderstood me and took me to a completely different part of the station, then the wheels on my trunk broke." She heaved a sigh. "I used up the last of my biotics carrying it as far as I could because the place I was dropped off in had no other taxis going by. Now after trying to drag it this happens and - oh, sorry. I'm rambling, aren't I?"

"Do you do that a lot?" Kushina asked, mirth creeping into her voice.

"Well, yes, sometimes." She allowed, doing that funny thing where she tried to avoid eye contact again. "But could you tell me how far we are from the ship? I mean, if you're part of it that is. I just assumed you were since you are, well, human and there aren't any humans that I've seen on the Citadel- Ah, not t-that there's anything wrong with not living here! This is actually the first time I've been back her in over fifty year-" She stopped as Kushina's mirth slipped over and she laughed.

"I think you ramble a little more often then 'sometimes'."

The asari blushed again. "I-I guess so." The last of her possessions back in the case, she closed it shut. "Well, that's everything. Thank you for your help, now I just- h-hey, you don't have to carry it!" The same trunk that the asari had struggled pulling not ten minutes ago, Kushina now picked up with one arm and carried it over her shoulder with only the slightest amounts of difficulty.

"It's fine." The redhead reassured her. "And to answer your earlier question - yes, I am part of the _Normandy's_ crew, and the beauty of a ship is right over there." She pointed to the port not too far away. "I remember you from the Councilor's office, but you don't remember me?" She finished with a playful pout at the blue woman.

On some level, the asari realized that the redhead was joking and tried to return it. "Sorry, you must have been hidden behind your two associates."

Kushina whipped around to glare daggers at the alien, getting another _eep_ out of her. "Are you calling me short?"

"Er..." While they were about the same height, she knew that Kushina was small compared to the other two humans she has seen. "No?"

The Commander kept the glare up for a handful of seconds before turning and marching back the ship, the Prothean expert trailing shortly behind her.

**'~,_,~'**

The five inch tall hologram of the AI popped to life from the projector at Joker's elbow. "_Normandy_ is at optimal distance for Hyperspace Jump." She intoned. "Ready whenever you are, Mr. Moreau."

"Captain has locked coordinates." The pilot spoke with his normal playful smile, his fingers dancing about the Funijutsu array that controlled the main functions of the ship. "You ready for your first Jump?" He looked over his shoulder at Nihlus, who was standing behind him.

The turian Spectre gave him a curious glance. "I don't see why not. Is there anything I should be worried about?"

Joker shrugged. "Maybe. Some birds have been known to spontaneously combust when put through Hyperspace." Before anyone could respond, he already had his hand on a specific array of seals. "Jumping now!" The ship gave a lurch and the stars outside stretched as they went flying by. The pilot glanced over his shoulder again and laughed at Nihlus' face. He did not know turian expressions well, but he was pretty sure the alien he was looking at nearly pissed himself, or whatever his equivalent was.

"Some advice for you." The AI spoke up, drawing the turian's attention. "Never trust anything Mr. Moreau says - everyone calls him Joker for a reason." Nihlus looked a little uncomfortable at having the super computer talk to him, but accepted the advice. The AI huffed and put her hands on her hips. "You really don't know how to talk to a lady, do you? The least you can do is say thank you."

"I... apologize." His mandibles twitched. "You have my thanks." A snort made Nihlus turn to the other woman - a human this time - who was standing next to him. "What's so funny?"

The redhead shook her head. "Nothing. I'll just never understand how you can hold a grudge against out AIs for something a completely different race of them did so long ago."

Nihlus frowned. "The geth were and still are a serious threat."

"And they have nothing in common with, er, sorry I never got your name." She gave an embarrassed look at the AI at the end, scratching the back of her head.

The turian spoke before he could stop himself. "It has a name?"

From his seat, Joker gave a hiss and cast a sympathetic look at the Spectre. "Bad move man, bad move."

Shepard crossed her arms and leaned back, widening her stance as she did. Even thought she was shorter than most humans her age and Nihlus was a good four inches taller than her, her icy glare managed to make him feel very small at the moment. The AI glared bloody dangers.

"_It_," Shepard stressed the word. "may have been born in a very difference way than you but _it_ is still very much a person."

"And _it_ is standing right here and wishing that _it_ could slap you." The small woman of blue light had to restrain from commanding some random door or panel of the ship to move so that it could do the deed for her. "My name's Cortana, by the way."

Nihlus looked between the two angry women and made the smart decision of backing down. "Yes, I see, well it was, ah, nice to meet you... Cortana." He nodded to the hologram, then at the other two humans. "Likewise Commander, Flight Lieutenant." And then retreated from the room in the most dignified manner her could manage. If there was any bright side to that conversation it was that he confirmed that humans - and AIs he added - followed what he was coming to believe was a universal law. Women were scary when angry.

**'~,_,~'**

The Utopia System was a medium sized system that consisted of one star, five planets, and one natural satellite big enough to be considered a moon. Currently, five of those six bodies were being mined. Afterwards they would be terraformed and immigrants could begin moving in. Two planets would require Halos to get enough light, and once those were built they could be inhabited too.

The one that was not being mined was a natural garden world when humans found it and it was called Eden Prime. The reason it was not being mined was because if they took too much minerals from it they could destroy the ecosystem beyond repair. It could always be terraformed again later to not need those minerals but that was unproductive.

The _Normandy_ had exited Hyperspace - much to the relief of its human crew members - and into Eden Prime's atmosphere without problem. There were no cities to watch out for as they glided across the sky, only farmers and few excavation teams working on digging up the Prothean ruins lived here. The frigate touched down long enough to let off the researchers and a security team near the dig site before leaving to find a more optimal place to land.

Now, a little over an hour later, Kushina was bored again. Most people would probably pass the time by calling up friends and family, but most of her friends were still training in the Shinobi Corps so they were either busy training or sleeping - there was nothing else to do there. The only family she was close to were either not connected to Skynet or named Hannah. And there was only so many times you can play twenty questions with your mother before it gets old. She could partake in the universal human sport of laziness and surf the web of information she had, but felt there were somethings more entertaining to do.

Like bugging Nihlus.

"So what's a Spectre anyway?" She smiled as the turian flinched. She did not consider that he might not have heard her when she snuck up behind him, but found the effect amusing nonetheless.

"Special Tactics and Reconnaissance." He answered obediently. "An elite group with the sole purpose of preserving galactic stability."

Kushina gave a low whistle. "Impressive. What kind of training do you have to go through for that?"

"There is no training." The redhead tilted her head to the side in confusion. "We are chosen from among the best by the Council."

"So they're the best of the best?" He nodded, but hesitated from continuing when he saw the feral smile beginning to form on her lips. "And Councilor Tevos said that you're one of the most awarded Sperctres, so you're the best of the best of the best?"

"I... suppose." He allowed.

"You wanna have a fight?" Now, her smile was fully formed, showing many pearly white teeth and long canines.

Nihlus' first reaction was to accept, but squashed that down ruthlessly, now was not the time. "We are in the middle of the first joint mission between your government and mine. If we were to get anything wrong, the results could be catastrophic." Her smile fell to a frown. "If nothing else, I doubt that it would help either of us if you return home in critical condition."

Kushina blinked, and her smile returned full force. "Are you saying you think you can beat me?"

"You said it yourself, I'm the best." He said evenly, fully believing in what he was saying. "I do not know much about human chain of command but I'm pretty sure that Lieutenant Commander is not very high." He leaned in to get his point across. "In a fight, you would be annihilated."

The hanyo's expression turned angry. "Now listen here-" A shadow fell over the two. Curious, they both looked up to see the sky blanketed by a large dark cloud. "I could have sworn the sky was clear a minute ago." She muttered to herself.

"We should get the researchers inside." Nihlus said, also staring at the sky. "Last thing we need is for them to get caught in a storm." Kushina nodded.

She probably should have checked the weather on Eden Prime before touching down. Oh well, too late now. It would probably still be a good idea to check to see how severe the storm would be. Someone must have posted the weather for this planet somewhere on Skynet-

_Bzzzzzzzzz_

A blink.

Two blinks.

She tried again.

_Bzzzzzzzz_

Nothing.

"Commander... Commander Shepard!" She looked to see the turian looking at her in annoyance. He became alarmed, however, when he was the unabridged panic blossoming on Kushina's face. "What's going on?" Instinctively, his hand went to the shotgun on his lower back.

"I... I don't know." She felt... lost. To be disconnected from the web of information was one thing, but to not even be able to connect to other people either was completely different. Kushina looked back up at the storm cloud that seemed to be even darker now. "Something is very wrong." But like any good soldier, she beat the rapidly growing anxiety into the back of her mind and sprang into action. "Alenko! Jenkins!" The final two members of the security team looked up from where they were some distance away at her shout. "Get over here! Double time!"

It was when the two men were about halfway to her and Nihlus that she saw it. In the tree line far behind the two was a light. It was a dim white and unremarkable, but something about it set her off...

The warning of danger her very being gave was enough that the curtain that only showed itself in battle covered her unnecessary emotions and cleared her mind.

"Get down!" A gut wrenching instinct that she could not explain forced the words out of her mouth at the same time it forced her to tackle Nihlus to the ground. A loud, piercing _bang_ reached her ears and she could have sworn that something unseen flew mere inches way from her head. The two scrambled behind a pile of crates and Kushina's shields flared on at one point, but whatever activated them did not hit her armor. The gunfire continued as Alenko scrambled into the cover beside her. "Where's Jenkins?"

The Staff Sergeant looked her in the eye and shook his head. "I'm sorry, ma'am."

A growl ripped its way up her throat and through her lips. She slapped a hand on the SC7 emblem on the collar of her breastplate, causing two poofs of smoke that signaled the release of Storage Seals. A pitch black helmet with a one-way visor appeared around her head and segmented black armor now ran the length of her tail. Completely covered in armor now, she turned to her subordinate. "You're a biotic, right?" Alenko nodded. "You any good with barriers?" Another nod. "Good, when I say go, throw one up right there." She moved into a ready position, but made sure to stay behind the cover.

"What are you doing?" Nihlus hissed, gripping his shotgun tightly. "That sniper will blow your head off before you go three feet!"

"Not if I'm faster than it is." She shot back. "Now!" She sprinted out from behind the crates, a wall of dark energy was there to catch the first bullet that would have nailed her right in the head. Abruptly, she stopped and looked for the sniper. She saw the flash of the sniper rifle at the same time the second bullet was stonewalled by the barrier. With the target's location locked, Shepard flicked her wrists and an almost invisible swirl of wind surrounded her fingers in a way not dissimilar to claws. Before the third bullet could be fired, she disappeared in a swirl of wind, grass, and leaves. There was a great shriek of metal being torn apart followed by silence.

When Shepard emerged from the tree line, she was carrying the top half of some kind of robot. She dropped it unceremoniously and made her way over to the unmoving form of Corporal Richard Jenkins. The enthusiastic young man stared back up with a blank gaze and a bloody hole through his neck. Giving a silent prayer for the recently departed, she spoke to Alenko as he came up.

"Sergeant, can you access Skynet?" The man had donned his own helmet and was not expecting her question.

"What? Well... no, I can't." He was surprised by this. A little scared too.

"Weird killing robot and no connection. This is not a coincidence." She glared at Nihlus, who was kneeling down, inspecting the top half of the robot. She stormed up to him and put a hand on the back of his head, the Taihou Seal engraved onto the palm of her gauntlet ready to fire at a moment's notice. "You better not have anything to do with this, Spectre."

The turian glared back up at her, probably unknowing that he had a weapon pressed against his head. "_This_ is the reason the Council has a distaste for AIs. This is a geth."

The glaring contest lasted for a few tense seconds before Shepard lowered her hand and looked through her visor at the flashlight-like countenance of the machine that killed Jenkins. "What is it doing here?"

Nihlus shook his head and stood up. "I have no idea. They have not come out from beyond the Perseus Veil since the end of the Geth War centuries ago. But considering its proximity to the dig site..."

Shepard caught on. "It's probably after the beacon." The turian nodded.

"It's also unlikely that it's alone." Kaidan added, scanning the surrounding area quickly. The other two followed his example.

"We have no way of contacting the ship." With Skynet out of reach for some unknown reason and none of them knowing the number needed for Nihlus to reach the _Normandy_ through his Omni-Tool, they were stranded here without reinforcements. "We need to get everyone out of here." Three heads whipped to the side at the sound of gunfire in the distance. "_Now_." Shepard commanded.

**'~,_,~'**

The area they had waited in for the experts to finish was fairly close to the main dig site. But, when there were a few dozen squads of dangerous synthetics between here and there, it seemed to stretch on forever.

Shepard slid into cover next to another human - female, white and red armor. She was probably part of the small military detachment stationed on the planet. Unfortunately, she seemed to be the only one alive in the area. "Identify!" The Commander barked as the other two came to rest beside her, Nihlus blasting the head off of a robot that got too close before doing so.

"Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, 2nd Frontier Division." The marine intoned, instinctively ducking her head when the top of their cover was hit by something fast and explosive. "These things came out of nowhere and hit hard. I don't know how many of my squad mates are still alive."

"Then you better stay alive long enough to find out." She quickly scanner the area. "We're going to surround them. Nihlus, move to that cover over on the right, I'll do the same to the left. Williams, Alenko, give us covering fire." The two humans gave obedient affirmatives, but the turian looked ready to protest taking orders from the Lieutenant Commander. "Go!" Against his better judgment, Nihlus obediently ran to the specified cover - an abandoned human vehicle of some ilk. There was just something in Shepard's voice that made him listen even if he did not particularly want to. Not quiet charisma or intimidation, but something in between.

As he was leaning out of cover to fire at the geth, Nihlus caught the one human - Williams - peel her hemet off and lean out of cover.

_What the hell is that rookie doing? She's going to get-_

A huge gout of flames shot from her lips - hot enough to melt half a dozen geth into metallic puddles and liquidized plastic.

..._ Right, human magic, forgot about that. That explains Shepard's disappearing act earlier, too._

It also explained how these three humans were using their hands like guns, something that seemed almost unfairly convenient to him.

So caught up in his thoughts - something that he knew could get him killed here - the Spectre had missed the thing that came at him from the side. It tackled him to the ground and began to claw at his unprotected face and neck with dangerously sharp talons. With a precise movement, he got his hands around the thing's head and snapped the its neck before kicking it away. The thing gave a sound that was somewhere between a groan and a screech and got back up, uncaring that its head was on backwards. A shotgun blast finally put it down.

_What is this thing-_ His thoughts were cut off as more of these zombie-esque creatures climbed out from behind rocks and trees, their glowing blue eyes boring into him from everywhere. "Spirits..." The charred husks poured down on him and Nihlus turned and sprinted away, dropping a grenade before he did. "Shepard!" The woman looked up from where she was inspecting the now geth-free area. The armored human flinched back as the grenade went off, earning a symphony of shrieks from behind Nihlus. Chancing a glance over his shoulder, the turian fired behind him and took out one of the husks that got too close for comfort. But it was only one out of dozens.

Instead of running or shooting them like he expected, Shepard took an odd stance. Her arm flicked to the side and became obscured by a cloud of smoke like when she summoned her helmet and, er, tail armor. It cleared shortly afterwards to show the human now holding a _massive_ blade. Shepard widened her feet and held the butcher knife of a sword behind her head, ready to swing. An aura of silver wind swirled around the metal.

"Get down!" Once again, Nihlus listened to her without thinking about it and dived for the ground. It was a suicide move because the synthetic things chasing him would not doubt catch him now and rip him to pieces. With a cry, Shepard swung her massive blade forward. At the climax of the swing, when it was pointing directly towards the enemy, the silver winds surrounding it blasted apart with great force.

Nihlus, who was low enough to the ground to avoid the worst of it, was fine. The dozens of things following him were not so fortunate.

The winds ripped them apart and threw the husks around like rag dolls. They crashed into trees and boulders with loud cracks and snaps. Those trees and boulders were then also cut apart and thrown around. Shepard beat a hasty retreat and tackled both Williams and Alenko to the ground, and for good reason considering she knew what was coming.

A virtual wall was formed around them as the shredding air spiraled upwards. Within seconds, the four soldiers had the unique pleasure of being dead center in the middle of a raging tornado. It only lasted a minute, but to them that small time frame seemed to stretch on forever.

The shock of the situation was so great to Nihlus that there was no transition between the giant storm and when Shepard was standing over him, holding out her hand in offering. "You gonna lie there all day, Spectre?" Nihlus blinked and took the offered limb, grateful for her help in pulling himself to his feet.

He looked around, seeing not another soul in sight. The tornado looked to have reached a radius of about fifty meters if where the new tree line started was anything to go by. "Shepard?"

"Yeah?"

"Never do that again."

"Heh, not like I'm jumping for the chance." She sounded tired. She looked it even more so. "We need to move faster. Shit just hit the fan."

"You know what those things were?" He kept pace with the three humans as they jogged further towards the dig site. "I've never heard of geth using anything like that before."

"We call them Husks." An appropriate name. "And it's not geth tech, its something much, _much_ worse."

"You really think there's another one of those _things_ out there, ma'am?" Williams asked, having put her helmet back on.

Shepard grunted. "It's the only explanation I can think of." She cast a gaze at the still overcast sky. "Might even be that it's what's messing with Skynet, too."

"What are you all talking about?" Nihlus finally demanded.

"There's a Reaper here, that's what we're talking about."

**'~,_,~'**

Professor Liara T'Soni liked being alone. She was alone for most of her childhood and her time in various schools and she had grown so accustomed to it that she willingly left civilization to work alone on some near-forgotten planet, digging up relics of the past. She preferred the silence of being left to her thoughts over crowds any day.

But right now she really wished that she had someone to help comfort her. Well, someone beside her colleague who lay dead a mere two feet away.

She was lucky enough to already be behind the shelves looking for something when the attack came, and was smart enough to not leave at any point. The geth always seemed to be right on top of her location and she was afraid that the smallest of movements would alert them. When a well armed and obviously military turian showed up, she felt hope build up, only for it to be crushed and spat on when he began ordering the geth to rig a bomb - and a pretty big one at that. He then did something with the beacon she had been given the opportunity to study and left.

Now, she was alone with her dead colleague, the geth, and a_ bomb_.

When the second turian showed up, she was suspicious, right up until it blew the head off of a geth. The firefight sprang up and Liara made a stupid and naïve decision like she had done so many times before.

Sitting up to look over the small shelf, she pointed the pistol her late colleague had carried at the nearest geth and opened fire. She was not good with a gun per se, but she was not bad either.

When the two humans showed up and started shooting - with their hands! - at the geth and flinging around biotics, she was relieved. As well as embarrassed as she forgot about her own biotics and promptly caught a synthetic in her aura of dark energy and threw it over the cliff.

When the demon showed up, she was stunned into silence. It could only be a demon - a being of darkness that moved as a blur and swung a giant butchering blade easily with one hand. The fight ended shortly afterwards and she was approached by the demon.

"You still in one piece?" The black figure asked, pulling the asari up. "Nothing broken?"

"No, thank you." She jumped as her brain started working properly again. "The bomb!"

"What?" The demon followed her as she went around a small corner to the large device that was hidden just enough that anyone not looking for it would not see it. "Not good. Can you diffuse it?"

"W-What? Me? No, not at all." She was only a professor, after all.

"Tsk." The demon leaned back around the corner. "Nihlus, get over here!" When the turian did as instructed, he cursed and immediately kneeled down to inspect it. "Can you do anything with it?"

The Spectre nodded. "Don't worry, I can. Just make sure that nothing interrupts me for the next minute or so." And he got to work on the machine that Shepard could not even begin to hope to understand - alien tech was way to different from human tech. Nihlus was actually better than he proclaimed and defused it in a few seconds.

"That was quick." Shepard complimented. "Nice job." The turian however, only frowned - she was pretty sure it was a frown at least. "What's wrong?"

"I... Nothing, it's nothing." In truth, the type of bomb and wiring behind it was strangely familiar. Where had he seen this design before? "Did the geth bring this here?" He asked the asari that had pointed it out.

"No, I-I mean yes, but not on their own." Shepard and Nihlus looked at her, confused. "A turian was commanding them. T-Then he did something with the b-beacon," She pointed to the ancient relic on the edge of the cliff. "and left." Shepard left to get a closer look at the beacon while Nihlus continued his investigation.

"What did the turian look like?" There a chance - a small one - that he might know the culprit. The asari started trying to stutter out an answer, but the Spectre had dealt with shocked witnesses before. "Did he have any facial paint? Or could you not see his face?"

"N-No, I mean, he didn't have paint." _Figures, most criminals don't._ "He was kinda pasty looking and had strange armor." _Not helpful really._ Her eyes lit up. "Oh, I know! He had cybernetic implants." _Here we go!_

"Where on his body?"

"Er, well, everywhere. Most on his chest and arms. Some on his feet. He had one along his jaw line too."

Nihlus' stomach dropped. That extensive amount of cybernetic implants could only be funned by a government, and it would only be necessary if the recipient was was critically injured. Nihlus only knew one turian who was injured like that and whose position was important enough that the Hierarchy paid for his surgery. The Spectre glanced down at the now defused bomb - so _that_ was where he had seen that type of wiring before.

It was his duty as a Spectre to keep a cool head, but in light of his new information he turned an angry glare at the asari. Liara tensed when Nihlus grabbed her shoulders and shook her. "Liar!" The turian shouted.

"W-What? No I-I'm not-"

"Shut up!" He threw her hard enough that she stumbled and fell. "He would never do something like this! You're lying!" The asari tried to protest again. In response, Nihlus brought out his gun. "Saren is a good man! Better than you will ever be! You _are LYING_!"

"Alenko!"

The call distracted Nihlus just enough that he looked away from the downed asari to see the male human pushed away by Shepard - who was struck by the electricity from the beacon in his place. It was apparently strong enough to get through her armor and receive a cry of pain.

And once again, Nihlus got distracted.

Liara T'Soni was many things - shy, awkward, and antisocial chief among them - but she was not weak or stupid. Seeing the turian momentarily distracted, she lashed out with biotics and slapped his gun away, where it skidded across the ground. Quick as lightning, Nihlus whipped out his sidearm and opened fire. Just making it, Liara brought up a wall of dark energy to take the bullet in her stead. The Spectre moved to circle around her but she was having none of that. The biotic wall was forced outward and knocked the turian back where he crashed into a wall. The harsh contact was marked by the explosion of the beacon that sent Shepard flying as well.

When Nihlus was about to get back up and Liara was about to knock him back down, the ground beneath them abruptly liquidized. Liara was not ashamed to say that she screamed as she sunk into mud that was solid concrete a second ago.

"What the hell are you to doing?" The other human female - the one with white armor - asked in a dangerously annoyed voice. The male human was tending to the now unconscious Shepard. "Now is really not the time for this!"

"He attacked me!" Liara shouted, not really caring that it was only a slightly more mature version of 'he started it'.

"Because you're trying to frame my mentor!" Nihlus shot back, wishing that his gun was not firmly trapped in the mud. "Saren would never do anything like this!"

"I have no idea who Saren is!"

"Stop lying!"

"I'm not lying!"

"Both of you, _shut up_!" Williams shouted, stamping her foot on the ground. The reason for the movement became obvious when the two aliens quickly sank even further into the ground until only their heads where untouched. "Skynet is back up and the _Normandy_ is coming back. The five of us are the only ones left alive on this whole damn _planet_ and I don't want that number to drop any lower!" She cast a worried glance at Shepard, who was being biotically lifted by Alenko. "You can kill each other after we get a full debriefing, do I make myself clear?!"

Liara nodded, and Nihlus followed after one last glare at the blue girl.

"Good." Williams said, then coughed uncomfortably. Under her helmet, she blushed. "Well I have no idea how to get you both out of the mud so you have to do it yourself."

The aliens blinked stupidly as the human left to go help carry her comrade.

* * *

**End, let's review, shall we.**

**Enter Joker!**

**Enter Kaidan!**

**Enter Nihlus and not kill him off!**

**Enter Liara!**

**Enter Cortana... because it's Cortana and why not!**

**Enter Jenkins and still kill him off because I'm a bastard like that!**

**Enter geth!**

**Enter Ashley!**

**Enter Saren (kinda)!**

_**Characters! Characters everywhere!**_

**Explanation**** time!**

**Shinobi Corps = N-School, if you didn't figure it out. Nothing that I can remember or find said much about N-School, so I kinda just screwed around with it and made this.**

**2,011,932,687: That's the total human population. The way I relieved it was kinda cheesy and stupid, but hey, I like picking on Tevos. Also the other species populations were mostly ****gestations on my part.**

**Normandy: Yes, it can turn invisible. Hey, I needed to make it special somehow!**

**Nothing that humans know of can block out Skynet, so the gang is really worried when they find out that that is what happened.**

**Kushina did a Shunshin to get to the first geth, she just needed a barrier up so that she could have time to 'lock on' to its location and zoom over to it.**

**If you haven't figured it out yet, Kushina is mainly proficient in Wind Jutsu (hmm, I wonder who she got that from). I also will not have them shout out the name randomly as no character in ME ever did that of biotics, so Jutsu will be silent in this story... What? No, of course I'm not doing that because I'm bad at coming up with names for all my original ones! Why would you think that? Haha... ha... ha...**

**Well then, *clears throat* Until Next Time,  
- - _Sorcerer of the East_**


End file.
